Loaves and Fishes: Music, friends and a nice hot lunch

Laverna Kern of Vancouver takes a heaping helping of a Loaves and Fishes meal last week at Marshall Community Center. (Photos by N. SCOTT TRIMBLE/The Columbian)

Photos by N. SCOTT TRIMBLE/The Columbian Hot food is served up at Marshall Community Center for Loaves and Fishes last week. This year, more people are showing up for meals that have a suggested donation of $2.75 for people 60 and older.

The lunch carts are fruitful at Clark County’s Loaves and Fishes centers. And the crowds are multiplying.

The number of meals served at the seven sites in the county (see list) is up 15 percent over last year.

The older-than-60 visitors are drawn by the live music and dancing; by the chance to see and be seen by friends and acquaintances; and, of course, by the promise of a hot nutritious meal, five days a week, for a suggested donation of $2.75.

“Every day there’s new ones coming in,” said Laverna Kern, 81, of the Vancouver Heights neighborhood, eating lunch at Vancouver’s Luepke Center last week. “$2.75 — you can’t beat that.”

The same food somewhere else would cost at least $10, said Robert Speiser, 60.

“It’s just a good, cheap meal,” said Speiser, his white pony tail trailing over the collar of his Hawaiian shirt. “I can’t afford to go to a restaurant.”

Speiser moved recently from Pennsylvania and is staying with a friend in Hazel Dell while he looks for a home. He’s been coming most weekdays for the past month, he said.

For those younger than 60, the lunch costs $6.80.

Others said they show up mostly for the companionship.

Laughing over lunch with her friends Shirley White, 72, and Lyle Von Tersch, 76, Doris Niemann said she’d invited them to her table when they first showed up, two years ago.

“Always when you see new people, you try to make them feel at home,” said Niemann, 86.

Kate Lock, 73, of the Fairway 164th neighborhood, said she comes on Wednesdays and Thursdays, when there’s a live band and ballroom dancing.

On the other three weekdays, the event is bingo.

About a third of the money for the discounted meals comes from the federal Older Americans Act; the rest is from donations to the private group, which also provides Meals on Wheels service.

Lock has noticed that the Loaves and Fishes folks are trying to woo younger retirees — baby boomers — who don’t tend to turn out for the ballroom dancing.

One event, she said, had a car show and a live rock band.

“They had, you know, boomer generation music,” Lock said. “I wasn’t there, you know. But that’s what they told me.”

They also told Lock that only seven people had actually danced at the event.

“I think the boomers aren’t ready for this yet,” Lock said.

Several people who ate last Thursday’s meal — roast pork with gravy, couscous, peas and carrots, a patio salad, wheat roll and applesauce — said food quality took a turn for the worse last year, when it started being prepared in Portland.

But lately, they agreed, it’s gotten much better again.

Lock, though, poo-pooed any and all criticism of the food.

“A lot of people complain, no matter how good it is,” Lock said. “It’s better than my own cooking.”

Then, smiling, she popped a piece of roast pork into her mouth.

Michael Andersen: 360-735-4508 or michael.andersen@columbian.com.