‘Community Kitchen’ steps in to Feed the Hungry

Published 1:30 am Monday, July 13, 2026

Last summer, the Catholic Community Services Feed the Hungry program in Aberdeen unexpectedly served its last meal after four decades.

The Moore Wright Group, through a new venture called J-Street Cafe and Catering, was to step into the breach and provide meals at least three days per week. However, that initiative was short-lived, and people in need who had come to rely on the Feed the Hungry program have been forced to go without or find alternatives for the better part of a year.

Recently, a new program, Community Kitchen, now led by Bill Tronvig, has emerged to provide meals, perhaps not on the scale or at the frequency of Feed the Hungry just yet.

Tronvig provided a history of Feed the Hungry, which was spearheaded by former program manager Cher Spencer for several years.

In the fall of 1981, Father Tom Quinn began a plan to provide a meal for the homeless and low-income in the area. By February of 1982, St. Mary Catholic Church volunteers began to serve soup and sandwiches on Sundays to about 25 people at St. Rose Center (now the Friendship House). The program grew, moved to the new Parish Center, and began serving six days a week with teams of volunteers under the direction of Jane Mezera, a parishioner.

The program continued to grow in attendance and need for supplies. In 2002, Catholic Community Services took over management of the program. Volunteers were from throughout the community. As time went on, attendance grew to an average of over 100 per day, but volunteers dwindled. The program went to five days a week. Expenses grew, and at the end of June 2025, Catholic Community Services closed the program.

According to Tronvig, a group of parishioners approached Rev. Michael Barbarossa about resurrecting the program. Emerging from a deacon training program, an individual named Joshua Roberts, who has since moved on, marshaled volunteers, including Tronvig, and created something new.

“We only have 10 volunteers, but that’s all we need because we can’t really expand it much more without the other groups that want to come in and help. We do a hot lunch and cold lunch every Tuesday,” Tronvig said. “We work out of the [Coastal Community Action Program] building downtown. We make the [sack] lunches at St. Mary’s, and we have Hao, who works out of Our Lady of Good Help in Hoquiam, who makes hot lunches, and he brings down some incredible hot lunches; he’s just a magician. We do the second, third, and fourth Tuesdays of the month, and the fifth if there is one. Amazing Grace Lutheran Church does the first Tuesday of the month, and the Latter-day Saints do Thursday all month long; they do a sack lunch.”

Tronvig added that lunches are served 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. or until the food runs out. He said there is a variety of people who use the program and organizations that help out.

“It’s not just homeless people; there are economically and food-insecure people, too,” Tronvig said. “Donations are given to our new name, Community Kitchen, to be more of a secular approach to it, non-denominational. The Salvation Army, when they have extra food, they donate it to us; the fisheries department has given extra salmon. I’m still scrambling trying to figure out how to get groups and organizations involved.”

Anyone wishing to volunteer with the new Community Kitchen Program in Aberdeen may email Tronvig at wjtronvig@msn.com or call 360-589-0306.

Community Kitchen serves at the Coastal Community Action Program, located at 101 E Market St., on Tuesdays [hot and cold] and Thursdays [sack lunch] from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.