Out of Crisis, Into the Kitchen: Leor’s new path

This month, we’re zooming in on the food, kitchens, and dining experience at our shelters. With the approaching holidays, our community steps up to donate toward providing meals. We hope you’ll see that a healthy, warm meal at Union Gospel Mission does more than fill a hungry belly. Leor knows firsthand, why her work in the kitchen matters. 

Just one year after Leor first stepped foot in UGM’s Crisis Shelter, we sat down with her to catch up. This past spring, we shared her story on this blog, but a lot has happened in just a few months. Now, she’s managing a kitchen, directing often inexperienced workers, and only has donated food available for her menus. All this hard work is not for paying customers, but for the residents in UGM Women’s Recovery at Anna Ogden Hall. “Being where I was at a year ago, I never would have thought I could be where I am at now… Now I am here, and I never thought that I would be here. UGM has saved my life.”

 

“I got my passion back.”

 

Daily Chores: A blessing in disguise

It started with one of UGM’s requirements. At every UGM Inland Northwest shelter, each overnight guest is given a daily chore for the duration of their stay. “I was thinking about going back into the medical field where I had started,” Leor says. “[But] the medical field has a lot of grief in it for me, just having been a caregiver for my dad and for my husband before he passed. When I started [my chore] in the kitchen, Bethany [UGM Crisis Shelter Production Chef] got me back into cooking. I did it before, when I was first out of high school, for my first job and for a couple of years before I went into medical assisting. So, I got my passion back, and she has been mentoring me and encouraging me into going back to school for culinary.”

UGM was struggling this summer to fill multiple culinary positions across the ministry. With Leor’s former experience and her readiness for employment, she and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Marissa, were offered space in our Aftercare Housing, and Leor was hired temporarily as the Production Cook at Anna Ogden Hall. It wound up being a win-win situation.

Inside the kitchen at Anna Ogden Hall

We asked Leor to tell us what it’s like running a recovery center’s kitchen.

“On Mondays, I pull all my stuff out for the week—like meats and stuff that I’m going to want to use for menus. Bethany comes in, and she’s been helping me go ‘shopping’ over at Trent [UGM’s donations warehouse at the Men’s Shelter]. Donations from Costco and Yokes come on Mondays, so we go over and pick through all the nice goodies and see what we can find.

“I get my menu together, then make lunch. The ladies [in program], have mealtime requirements [chores] that they have to fulfill. I also have other volunteers throughout the week who help serve lunch, and then after lunch we clean up and then we start getting ready for dinner.

“I think the most unexpected thing about the job is dealing with the ladies on different levels; communicating and diffusing arguments. Another thing that was unexpected was learning computer stuff—doing the ordering and learning how to enter in meal counts, keeping track whether the ladies have their food handler’s cards. Being in charge is a challenge.”

 

“I’m so grateful and blessed to be here and to be able to be able to grow with these ladies and share with them and be a part of all their accomplishments.”

Leor says Marissa is also growing and finding ways to serve the residents in the program. “Marissa is doing online schooling which she really likes. She has been over here volunteering, and she just filled out an application to be a volunteer at the Yellow House [UGM childcare facility]. She is wanting to read the Bible and pray and be more spiritual. That warms my heart and makes me so happy.”

Finding Permanence and Purpose

Leor shared with excitement that she recently found an apartment enabling her to move out of UGM Aftercare Housing. In addition to this milestone, she was also offered a permanent position as Production Cook at Anna Ogden Hall. “I knew that UGM would be part of my life anywhere I went, and now it’s really part of my life. I’m so grateful and blessed to be here and to be able to grow with these ladies and share with them and be a part of all their accomplishments.”

With the approaching Thanksgiving and Christmas season, Leor knows her work is not just about putting food on the table; it’s a ministry to women and kids coming from broken situations. “Sometimes the holidays can be tough, especially here with women in recovery, or maybe holidays weren’t a good time where they were living before…Letting them know that they’re not going to go hungry is huge because there’s a lot of them that like to hoard, and I have to reassure them about that. I always have food out here and I always have stuff in the fridge or the cupboard, stocked up with snacks, and I remind them that when the end of the month comes and they are running out of food stamps, they are not going to go hungry.”

“It’s not about judging you for whatever you’ve done in your past; it’s that you’re here and they know you need help, and that’s what it’s for.”

Leor Understands: Personal experience and personal impact

“When you’re homeless, everybody always assumes you did something to be there, like you’re a drug addict or you're an alcoholic or you did something crazy to become homeless. It’s not always the case. Life happens. Life happened for me. Everything kind of just crumbled around me. That’s the one thing that I’m so grateful to UGM for is that it’s not about why you’re there; it’s to help you get back on your feet and be there for you. It’s not about judging you for whatever you’ve done in your past; it’s that you’re here and they know you need help, and that’s what it’s for.”