For two years, Connie and Rudy Edwards have been the coordinators of community dinners held at the Snoqualmie United Methodist Church.
Held on Wednesdays from September to June every year, the community dinners were created to bring local people together.
Rudy Edwards, one of the coordinators of the event, said he and his wife took over the community dinners, which were run by Carol Peterson and Lynn Melton for two years, in 2015 after they both retired.
“We are retired, I was a USDA forest service and she is retired Washington juvenile councilor,” Edwards said. “About two years ago, we decided that when my wife was going to retire from the state, she said we could start doing this.”
Connie Edwards and Carol Lawrence, a retired teacher from Mount Si High School, make the main dishes for the dinner every Wednesday, and other volunteers bring sides. They also get help from high school students volunteering their time to help out with serving the food.
“They do the main dishes and then we’ll get other people from the church to volunteer desserts,” Edwards said. “Most of the time we get people to volunteer to make desserts or bring desserts. We have a couple of people in the community, if we tell them we need a certain kind of dessert, they get that dessert.”
Attendance at the dinners ranges from 15 to 30 people a night. When the Snoqualmie Valley Winter Shelter is operating out of the church, the community dinners will also serve food to some of the people through that program, as well.
“With the winter shelter at the church we provide more meals for the winter shelter people,” Edwards said. “We work with Jennifer Kirk, and we will see her from time to time and she provides us clientele. The more people we have, the better it is.”
The community dinners are completely funded by donations to the program and are free to attend.
“Growing up in the South we saw people helping each other and we have a great group of people here from all over the country who believe the same thing we believe, in helping people and having a meal,” Edwards said. “I don’t believe that people should be hungry, regardless of their station in life.”
The community dinners are held at from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Snoqualmie United Methodist Church on 38701 S.E. River St., Snoqualmie.
