July 2026 Donor / Volunteer / Partner Newsletter
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Pull up a chair at the kitchen table
From the heart of Tiny Pilkington, RIFA’s Soup Kitchen Manager
My favorite meal is breakfast.
6am… Breakfast.
4pm… Breakfast.
3am… Breakfast.
My grandmother always had a house full of family on Saturdays for her big breakfast. Every week, we gathered around her kitchen table for plates of biscuits and gravy and cups overflowing with coffee. It’s one of my favorite memories.
In 2018, a volunteer decided to bring a grandmother’s love to our soup kitchen. This volunteer provided a full hot breakfast every Tuesday, out of their own pocket, for a long time. This birthed what we now call Big Breakfast.
Each Tuesday, donations allowing, we cook the following; 18-24 dozen eggs cracked and scrambled, 2 gallons of gravy, 140 hot biscuits, 160 pieces of sausage, 6 full sheet pans of bacon, and 12 gallons of coffee. Over 100 people come to Big Breakfast on Tuesdays, making it our most attended mealtime of the week. The tradition continues. But like every meal in the soup kitchen, the food is not the important part.
On Tuesday morning, the soup kitchen is not a soup kitchen. It is a community center where we share who is sick and needs prayer. It is the corner table at McDonald’s where a group of elderly men sit and catch up once a week, usually the last ones out the door at 9:00 on the way to their jobs or to rest after a long night working a 3rd shift factory job. It is your grandmother’s kitchen table, where you can come and bring all your troubles and leave them outside the door for just a little while and be fed physically and emotionally. Sometimes you might even catch a hug or even an “I love you, I’m proud of you” from the burly kitchen manager.
Big Breakfast is a staple in the Soup Kitchen, because it is about so much more than the food.
Pull up a chair at the kitchen table
From the heart of Tiny Pilkington, RIFA’s Soup Kitchen Manager
My favorite meal is breakfast.
6am… Breakfast.
4pm… Breakfast.
3am… Breakfast.
My grandmother always had a house full of family on Saturdays for her big breakfast. Every week, we gathered around her kitchen table for plates of biscuits and gravy and cups overflowing with coffee. It’s one of my favorite memories.
In 2018, a volunteer decided to bring a grandmother’s love to our soup kitchen. This volunteer provided a full hot breakfast every Tuesday, out of their own pocket, for a long time. This birthed what we now call Big Breakfast.
Each Tuesday, donations allowing, we cook the following; 18-24 dozen eggs cracked and scrambled, 2 gallons of gravy, 140 hot biscuits, 160 pieces of sausage, 6 full sheet pans of bacon, and 12 gallons of coffee. Over 100 people come to Big Breakfast on Tuesdays, making it our most attended mealtime of the week. The tradition continues. But like every meal in the soup kitchen, the food is not the important part.
On Tuesday morning, the soup kitchen is not a soup kitchen. It is a community center where we share who is sick and needs prayer. It is the corner table at McDonald’s where a group of elderly men sit and catch up once a week, usually the last ones out the door at 9:00 on the way to their jobs or to rest after a long night working a 3rd shift factory job. It is your grandmother’s kitchen table, where you can come and bring all your troubles and leave them outside the door for just a little while and be fed physically and emotionally. Sometimes you might even catch a hug or even an “I love you, I’m proud of you” from the burly kitchen manager.
Big Breakfast is a staple in the Soup Kitchen, because it is about so much more than the food.
Tiny Pilkington
Soup Kitchen Manager
Shop Our Most Needed Soup Kitchen Items
Shop Our Most Needed Soup Kitchen Items
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Copyright © 2026 Regional Inter-Faith Association, All rights reserved.
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You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.