Latest News

The Friday Café is nearing the end of a long and fulfilling program year. It was our 8th season of operation, and our 3rd pandemic season. Most of Season 8 took place in hybrid mode: home-made food served in to-go containers from tables in Margaret Jewett Hall, with table seating on the church lawn. We served almost 4,000 such meals—plus several hundred bag lunches during the height of the Omicron surge in January and February. Twice we made plans to return to indoor seating, and twice we had to pull back because of rising case/hospitalization numbers. We can only wait to see what Season 9 brings!

In addition to food, we distributed a mountain of clothing, shoes, sleeping bags, toiletries, and other essential gear, most of it donated by church members and neighbors. And we shared a lot of love. Heartfelt thanks to all our many participants for sharing your time, energy, creativity, and resources to meet neighbors where they are with understanding and support.

During the month of July, the Café will be back outside under our blue canopy, serving bag lunches and City-funded restaurant meals from 12:00 to 2:00 on Fridays. If you’d like to help out by making a few bag lunches, please visit our July lunch signup! In August we’ll simplify still further, serving only restaurant meals, to give ourselves space to rest and rejuvenate before the start of the 2022–2023 season on September 9.

As always, the Friday Café website has information about how you can get involved. Or feel free to email me directly at fridaycafe@firstchurchcambridge.org.

Kate Layzer
Minister of Street Outreach