Keller makes a difference
Nyssa resident finds a way to help with soup kitchen
By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Monday, December 17, 2007 11:19 AM PST
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| Tammy Keller (right), who is operating CrossRoads Kitchen, stands next to the First Christian Church in Ontario with her mother, Millie Miller, where once-a-week free meals are provided. Keller said she plans to extend the meals fives times per week. |
ONTARIO - Though Tammy Keller, Nyssa, has not been a resident of Malheur County for long, she has already launched a program to reach out to those people who are less fortunate by providing an extra meal.
Keller, who moved with her family to Malheur County in 1999, operates the CrossRoads Kitchen 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. every Wednesday at First Christian Church in Ontario. Keller moved to Portland shortly after arriving in Nyssa, then moved back to the area for good in 2001.
“My sister lived up here, so we decided to move up this way,” Keller said.
She said she carried a strong desire to help people for several years and pondered opening a recreation center or a soup kitchen or providing counseling. Eventually she said she wanted to start a soup kitchen and then open up a shelter, she said.
“For years this has been my plan,” she said. “My husband finally said, ‘Do it, or quit talking about it.’”
So in October she began calling around for a site to operate the kitchen and found an open door at the First Christian Church, which also has a branch of the Next Chapter Food Pantry. From there she moved quickly to put the rest of her program together.
“I started on the first Wednesday of November,” Keller, who also works in the circulation department at the Argus Observer, said.
The menu is different each time, she said.
“My first week we did potato soup. We’ve had hot beef sandwiches and pinto beans and corn bread,” she said.
There will also be homemade stew, and Keller also tries to have a dessert, some kind of juice and always milk.
Keller said she wanted to start slow so information about the new soup kitchen has been by word- of-mouth, but word is getting around, as last week she fed 30 people and thinks maybe 60 people will show this week. She has been told to expect more than 100 people the day after Christmas, she said. She is planning a Christmas party that day (Dec. 26), which will start at 4 p.m.
“We deliver,” Keller said. “We make sure our meals get out of people who can’t be there.”
While she has received some food from Next Chapter Food Pantry, she has bought most of it.
“About 90 percent has come out of my own pocket,” she said.
She said she hopes the meal program will become completely supported by donations and grants.
It is a family endeavor, as her mother, Millie Miller, also helps out, as do three of her children.
This is her first time running a soup kitchen, Keller said, but this is not her first experience working in one, having been a volunteer in Portland.
“I’ve fed many, many people from my own home,” she said. “I’ve been on both sides. I know what it feels like to think there are no resources you can turn to.”
Her future goals are to serve meals five days per week and ministering from her own building, which would have showers and washers and dryers.
“I’m hoping to be in my own building by June,” Keller said. “That’s my goal.”
