By Britten Schear, Special to JTNews
The 10 folding tables in the Parish House of the Central Lutheran Church on Capitol Hill were piled high with traditional seder plates, baskets of Easter eggs, and bowls of tahini next to stacks of pita bread. In the steam-filled kitchen, Seattle Pacific University students stuffed deviled eggs while homeless kids cooked spinach-cheese souffles and kugels. It could have been the Mad Hatter’s holiday feast.
In reality, it was the exact scene that Elaine Simons and Alfred “Alfie” Susman of the group “Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets” (PSKS), and their team of volunteers, had hoped for.
Originally called an “Easter lunch,” the plan was to get Seattle’s homeless youth to sit down for a holiday meal together. It occurred to Simons and Susman, both Jewish, that integrating Passover into the April 12 event would attract the Jewish homeless community. The lunch morphed into what they eventually called a “Peace Meal,” referring both to the peace of breaking bread with neighbors, and the piecing together of food from different religions and cultures.
PSKS worker Dante Nightshade, who used to be homeless himself, said it took one to two months of planning and soliciting donations to bring the event to fruition. He noted the meal was important if not for any other reason than being a “time to get together for at least one day.”
One volunteer, well-known among Seattle’s homeless as “Mama” Sara, was raised in a home combined as Orthodox Catholic and Jewish. “We are a Family of Man,” she explained, “ and this dinner illustrates that…if a bunch of homeless kids can do it, why can’t the rest of the world?”
Most of the homeless kids present were not born in Seattle, but hail from cities across the U.S. and Canada. Their varied backgrounds, including “police trouble,” prompted some to deny use of their surnames names in print, and even to use fake first names.
One volunteer, Moses Froto, had come to Seattle from South Beach in Miami. Froto’s reason for attending the lunch was twofold: “I’m homeless and I don’t like the stereotype of lazy homeless people.” Second, just as Simons and Susman had hoped, Froto came to contribute to the Jewish aspect of the lunch, or as he bluntly put it, “I’m here to make the Jew food.”
Simons’ friend Sam Helmy came to make the Arabic food. Helmy was born and raised in Cairo, but immigrated to New York in 1981, where he met wife Lori. Their young son Joseph is being raised with both Muslim and Jewish traditions, and as his father prepared the tahini, Joseph ran from table to table, gobbling up Easter jelly beans and Cadbury eggs.
Simons and Susman both talked about the meal as a rare moment of harmony. Many of the kids are more used to fighting in the streets than sitting down for a meal together in a church hall. Susman noted that the lunch was “bringing different groups together [to demonstrate that] they don’t have to be stupid about things. Their own peers are helping to cook the meal,” so there is a mutual respect — at least for a short time.
Simons was specifically interested in getting the kids to enjoy the Jewish food. She said that in the past year 10 street kids approached her to reveal their Jewish identities. She noted that while this may not indicate a rise in Jewish homelessness, there are certainly homeless Jews looking to somehow return to Judaism.
Other homeless kids are not always inclined to be understanding of Jewish culture, however, and Simons was hoping that the Peace Meal would help to change that.
As she explained, “A few of the kids don’t like me because I’m a Jew…then they realize that some of their friends are Jewish and they have to back off.” To combat anti-Semitic feelings, Simons walked from table to table asking if the kids had tried the kugel or the apple cake.
The servers from SPU manned the buffet line, and joined in the meal once their shift was finished. Tony Martin, an SPU graduate and organizer of the volunteer effort, said the students were there to simply “provide our hands,” and to see how other Seattleites live. Martin took part in a program a few years ago that was aimed at community understanding of the homeless; he spent four days on the streets, living off a total of $2.
Speaking from this experience, he said it was important for the homeless kids to “feel served and valued,” and to get a good meal while they were at it.
Martin’s goal seems to have been accomplished: Otto from Puyallup grinned widely through the four-inch scar across his face as he demanded that someone bring him more chicken, and Theresa from New York obliged by giving him half of hers.
Food and funding for the event was provided, in large part, by Northwest Harvest and Jewish Family Service.