This particular Saturday afternoon, the menu featured grilled Italian sausage sandwiches served with peppers and onions, hot coffee and bottles of water and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in order to provide a vegetarian option.
But the inpidual items weren’t particularly important. Having a menu at all was.
Every Saturday except the first weekend of the month lunch is served, not out of a gourmet restaurant kitchen but rather the side of a white van, as Larck Family Missions parks beneath the overpass behind the Holiday Inn and offers free food to Concord’s homeless and hungry beginning at 1 p.m., a tradition the group started in Manchester more than two years ago and has continued in Concord for the past six months.
People stream in throughout the two hours the group is there, receiving food and drink and taking the opportunity to pick through a table of items that includes clothes, blankets and shoes donated to Larck to be given to those who need them.
“We eat and enjoy the company of our fellow God-loving people,” Linda Gardner said. “The food’s a plus, but it’s the love for all people (that brings us out). I think it’s just great that they do this. They are loving people.”
Dennis Larck and his family and friends first established a breakfast in Veterans Memorial Park in Manchester a little more than two years ago, watching it grow rapidly in attendance before turning it over to another group interested in running it. Larck Family Missions then moved to Pittsfield for six months until a church there took the reins, allowing the group to set up shop in Concord. If all goes well, the members will only be here long enough to hand it off to someone else, opening the door for assistance in another community.
The Manchester breakfasts, originally serving a few hundred people one day a week, are now filling the bellies of 250-300 people every Saturday and Sunday.
“I’m seeing new faces that I haven’t seen before, and that’s great,” Larck said. “When it starts to grow like that, that’s when I find that somebody sees it, it catches on and we just move on to another community so that this is just continued. Someone else will come along and say, ‘This is great, I’d really love to keep going with that,’ and we move on to another community.”
Faith plays a major role for Larck Family Missions, and many of the people who attend for the food also partake in spiritual nourishment, though it’s certainly not mandatory.
“We come out because of God’s love. Love is the foundation of faith, and that’s what we’re trying to share with everyone,” Larck said. “But we don’t force it on anybody. It has to be their choice to make that decision.”
The mission initially set up the lunches next to Everett Arena, but eventually moved behind the Holiday Inn because of its proximity to several clusters of people in need, as well as a Market Basket grocery store in case supplies run out. The change certainly seems to have taken hold, as droves of people wandered in from all corners Dec. 15, filling sub rolls with sausages and plastic cups with steaming coffee. Pockets of people shared conversation while others danced to music brought by the mission as the crowd swelled through early afternoon. A passing observer could easily have mistaken the event for a family reunion given the ease with each the patrons blended.
More than 50 people had been served by the time the mission packed things up, including a few entire families.
“They do things well here,” Wendell Ford said. “That’s why I come here, the fellowship. I look forward every week for them coming here.”
Mary Corliss, a member of the mission, was responsible for bringing the sausage sandwiches Dec. 15. She had an abundance of leftovers from another event and figured it would make for a good offering on a chilly winter afternoon, manning the grill throughout the lunch service.
“Being here is a blessing,” Corliss said. “It puts things into perspective for me. It makes you feel like you are making a difference. The bottom line for us is basically to spread God’s love, but we genuinely care about the people here. You can’t just talk the talk; you’ve got to walk the walk.”
Plenty of the patrons walk, some from great distances, to enjoy the afternoon fare. For many it’s more than just the food itself; it’s the opportunity to guarantee a hot meal and the company of friends, even if many begin the day as strangers.
“For a lot of people, they don’t take the time to eat or buy food, so they’ve got a place to go,” Dan King, who has been homeless since September, said. “It’s a lot easier to have a hot meal, fellowship, to meet people. A lot of people don’t eat healthy, because when they get money they spend it on the wrong stuff. Or some have a hard time storing food. Here, you’re closer to getting a healthy meal. Even peanut butter and jelly is healthier than what most people are eating.”
King first bumped into the mission near Everett Arena and has remained a faithful attendee. A vegetarian, he appreciates the variety, he said, and has also taken up the cause, creating fliers on his own and distributing them at several food pantries in the area. It was his announcement that the Dec. 15 meal would include sausage sandwiches that brought a handful of new faces, Larck said.
That loyalty has been earned, King said. Many homeless or needy people in the area feel neglected by society at large, but they know every Saturday they can grab a bite to eat and spend some time in a loving and welcoming environment.
“They are kicking people out behind the arena . . . it seems like nobody really cares about us,” King said. “They are giving people a sense that someone finally cares about us. To have that feeling is pretty good, that someone cares.”
Larck Family Missions is always accepting donations of money, clothes, blankets and other items. Those interested in donating can send items or money to Larck Family Missions, 750 Suncook Valley Highway, Epsom, N.H., 03234. For more information, email lfm4god@yahoo.com or call 724-8883.
