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Sixty Minutes

Martha’s Kitchen – PM Serving

311 Willow St. San Jose

at the Sacred Heart Church grounds.

To schedule your tour call: (408) 293-6111

Serving the hungry, since 1981.

It is hard to believe that Martha’s Kitchen will be celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2011. If we were to paraphrase one poet we would say  ’30 years is a weekend to an oak tree.’  It certainly does not seem that long. How things have changed in 30 years!  Our crowd is so much tamer.  There used to be fights that had to be broken up. Now, families come here because we provide a family atmosphere.  Looking back at old photos bring a feeling of nostalgia to our old-timers.

The renovation and expansion of our facility gives us the capacity to prepare over 210,000 meals a year.  The sunroofs in the kitchen provide plenty of lighting making our place so much brighter and more welcoming. Come and visit us.

• Martha’s Kitchen, San Jose
• Advent Lutheran Church, Morgan Hill
• Antioch Baptist Church, San Jose
• Bill Wilson Center, San Jose
• Dos Palos Youth in Crisis, Merced County
• First Christian Church, San Jose
• Goodwill, San Jose
• Health Trust Living Center, San Jose
• Sacred Heart Nativity Schools, San Jose
• Project Hope, San Jose
• Sacred Heart Community Service, San Jose
• Salvation Army, San Jose and Gilroy
• Santa Maria Urban Ministry, San Jose
• St. Joseph Day Worker Center, San Jose
• True Vine Baptist Church, San Jose
• USO, San Jose (when soldiers come through)
• St. Joseph Cathedral Downtown Homeless Ministry, San Jose

How Does Martha’s Kitchen Help the Central Valley?
Martha’s Kitchen is 97 miles from South Dos Palos in Merced County. Yet we play a key role in ensuring that families who are worst hit by the economy and California’s 3-year drought are provided for. Dos Palos Youth in Crisis and Food Pantry, one of the few organizations providing food to the needy in the area, takes the long hard trek (3 hours in their recycled  truck) to Martha’s Kitchen once a week. The reason? 1,500 people waiting for food. The organization serves lunch daily except Wednesday to about 65 people, dinner every other Friday to about 150; and gives away bags of groceries to 1,500 people each week. Unemployment is at over 40%. The area is a virtual dust bowl. Your support indeed reaches far and wide!

Signs crop up along Central Valley such as the sign at left. While the problem is highly debated, still some fear a return to the 1930’s economic collapse in the reqion. Right photo: Kathy Fowler and sister Phyllis, founders of the Dos Palos Youth in Crisis and Food Pantry are shown with volunteer Roger Eckstrom as they pick up 6 tons of food. They borrow any usable vehicle when their recycled truck breaks down.

We Are Collecting Toiletries
Martha’s Kitchen volunteers are busy putting together packages of toiletries to give away this Winter. Still needed are razors, toothbrushes, toothpaste, knitted hats, dental floss, Q-tips, combs, scarves and  gloves. Drysocks are especially important for the homeless. They are on their feet all day, and their socks become damp from natural sweating and sometimes due to the winter weather. You know how it feels to be wearing dirty, damp socks at the end of a long hard day. But you also know you will have clean socks the next day. It is a luxury for street folks to have clean dry socks.

Volunteer Spotlight: Willian Boyrer, President
William “Bill” Boyrer has been a volunteer at Martha’s Kitchen since his retirement in the early 80’s from the Retail industry where he spent 40 years in sales. He has been a gleaner picking up produce and bakery products from supermarkets for 25 years. He started gleaning for Martha’s Kitchen after he saw how much food was being thrown away from a nearby supermarket. In 1989, he became a member of the Board of Directors. Mr. Boyrer is serving as President of the Board and will step down after two consecutive 2-year terms at the end of the year. He has also been a very active volunteer for several organizations such as Sacred Heart Community Services, Ascent Volunteer Employment Service and for the Christian Children’s Fund. Since 1978 his family has sponsored 17 children from 5 different countries. A  few have them have gone on to become a missionary, others as citizens of the U.S.and contributing members of the community.

Roger Eckstrom, Soupman

For twenty-eight years, Martha’s Kitchen has been serving meals to those in need with dignity, a kind word and a smile. No one is ever turned away. Brother Joseph Nu’uanu, our retired Executive Director, used to say, “We are just a ‘mom and pop’ operation,” back when we prepared thirty thousand meals a year. We now prepare two hundred thousand meals a year, but Martha’s Kitchen still has that “mom and pop” feel. The secret is the cheerful attitude of all the dedicated volunteers who give their time year after year. Martha’s Kitchen is proof that God is alive and well in our community. I feel privileged to have been a part of this wonderful organiz ation for twenty years.

Sacred Heart Church, Sagrado Corazon

Sacred Heart Church is the birthplace of three major non-profit organizations that have served San Jose for a total of over sixty-seven years. Sacred Heart Community Service was founded by Louise Benson when she moved her ministry from her garage to the parish grounds with the blessing of its then Pastor, Fr. John Coleman. She started Martha’s Kitchen sometime later with the help of five friends. Both organizations have served hundreds of thousands of people in the community.

In 2001, Fr. Mateo Sheedy’s dream of a first rate school for low-income children in the community was realized. We hereby recognize Sacred Heart Church for these achievements which are unprecedented in the history of any diocese.

Bill Boyrer accepting Mayor Gonzales' Commendation.

Martha’s Kitchen was presented with a Commendation by the City Council of San Jose for serving more than a million meals to the poor and hungry in Santa Clara County over 24 years. Mayor Ron Gonzales (left) presented the Commendation to Martha’s Kitchen’s President Bill Boyrer (second from left) and Edita Cruz, Executive Director (at the microphone) on recommendation by Councilmember Madison Nguyen (second from right).

Soup Kitchens provide hot meals in cafeterialike settings, a help for those who can’t make their own food. In addition to a meal, soup kitchens offer something of a social scene for those who often live on the fringes of Silicon Valley society.

Martha’s Kitchen, located just south of Highway 280 on Willow Street next to Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ church, just underwent a major remodel complete with a gleaming new kitchen outfitted with top-notch equipment. While it’s one of the best-equipped soup kitchens in Silicon Valley, it didn’t start out that way.

Forty years ago, Louise Benson began serving free meals to the poor and hungry from the garage of her San Jose home. Because of the need, the number of people swelled, and in time her neighbors complained of the sometimes ragged crowds that came to her door. So in 1981, she and several friends relocated her makeshift soup kitchen to the grounds of Sacred Heart of Jesus church, which still retains the looks of its origins as a mission that dates back to 1900.

Since the expansion was completed in June, Martha’s Kitchen now serves more than 100,000 people a year in the big dining room and at other facilities in the area.

Martha’s Kitchen, which takes its name from the biblical figure Martha who fed Jesus and his followers, opens for dinner at 4pm Tuesday and Wednesday. Well before then, however, the crowds queue up outside. They arrive on foot, in cars, on bikes and on the No. 25 bus that rolls down Willow Street.

“It’s like a dam breaking when we open the doors,” says Edita Cruz, the soup kitchen’s ebullient executive director.

Martha’s Kitchen doesn’t require its clients to register or provide identification. They just have to be sober and fully clothed.

“We just feed the hungry with no questions asked,” says Cruz, a former tech industry worker who was laid off and started a second career with the soup kitchen. She had already been volunteering with the church and the career change appealed to her.

The dining room is divided into long rectangular tables for single diners and round tables for families. The tables are set with plastic knife and fork, paper napkin and Styrofoam cup. On the menu recently was turkey cacciatore, mixed vegetables, green salad, canned fruit, a roll, cake or cupcakes and a fruit pie. There’s also a soup station serving a good pozole.

Because of the large number of donated turkeys, the meat turns up a lot on the menu.

“They get kind of tired of turkey, but what are you going to do?” says head cook Denis Leyva. “I’ve learned to be very creative.”

The plates of food are set onto trays and stacked onto shelves for people to serve themselves. In addition to the hot meals, there are tables filled with bags of bread and boxes of pastries. Regulars make a beeline for the first-come, first-served table before getting in line for dinner.

To serve the nearly 300 people lined up outside, the volunteer staff opens the doors about 10 minutes early. The crowd files in quickly but orderly. The seasoned diners head right for the bread and pastries where volunteers make sure no one takes more than their share.

Latinos approach the soup line and smile when they learn it’s pozole, a Mexican soup made with pork and hominy. White and Asian diners look a little puzzled with the soup du jour but take it anyway. In just a few minutes the entire group is sitting down and eating. While there is some conversation most of the diners are focused on the food.

A 29-year-old woman by the name of T.C. was dining with her 16-month-old son Blake. She’s been coming to Martha’s Kitchen for three years. She and her boyfriend work, but like so many of the people who depend on food assistance, their income doesn’t leave enough for food, and eating at Martha’s Kitchen frees up money for other things.

“We’re just low-income,” she says.