I was born and raised in Sacramento, California. I came from a very dysfunctional family. My father died when I was four by mixing alcohol with prescription drugs, back in the days when there was no quick remedy for that. They labeled his death a suicide. My mother was left with four kids under five and thought we needed a father figure, so she got married a few years later and unfortunately, abuse began. I left home when I was 15; I said I can’t do this. So it was a rocky first part of my life.
I lived on the street for a while and then I went and stayed with some friends, but I finished school. I was bound to turn out to be more than what I was told I was going to be. I graduated midterm my senior year and started working in an antique store downtown. The post office was right by us, and I went in there one day and the Air Force recruiter said, “Hey you.” So I was 18 when I joined the Air Force and I spent 30 years on active duty. Not only did I learn to heal, but I grew up. I ended up making the highest enlisted rank, which is kind of tough to do, especially if you don’t have a degree. I just kept going and I had some really wonderful jobs that taught me a lot of different facets of leadership.
When I got out of the military 16 years ago, I just started hanging out with nonprofits, teaching life skills and kind of just breathing after 30 years of being in a fast-paced environment. One day I just said, “Okay, Lord, you gave me 30 years of combat training. What are you going to do with it?” I was looking through lists on the computer and the Church Under the Bridge came up. So I came down here one day and as soon as I walked in the door I just knew this is where I belonged. And I’ve been serving here ever since.
I started out just being a volunteer who worked at what we call the tray station, where people brought their plates and cups after they were done eating. But it was great for me because I had been in military leadership for so long that I learned how to serve and I learned how to love. I did that for 6 months until the pastor that ran the church at the time asked me if I wanted a job. He preached, he sang, but he needed someone to build the other parts of the program. So he asked me to lead operations while he led the church.
They had been operating outside on the street for 15 years, so when
the building was given to us 10 years ago, we needed to organize and
develop processes. With the help of a volunteer team, the pastor built
the church and I developed the other programs. In the military I had a
number of different jobs that gave me a variety of experience and
training. I fit perfectly here because there was nothing and I’m a
builder. You give me nothing, tell me what you want, and I’ll build it.
We didn’t have that many struggles except for money. When they were out
on the street they didn’t need anything except a little bit of food,
since clothes and hygiene products were always donated. But with the
expansion into a building, we had to start budgeting for things such as
electricity and water.
The original program, until COVID, was three nights a week. On those
nights, we held a church service and then they would all go into the
dining room for dinner. When they were done eating, they’d get a ticket
for clothing and then get in line to get their clothes. The first two
years were a challenge because none of us really knew how to orchestrate
the best process for this environment.
We learned some things the hard way in the beginning. Everybody had
everything they owned with them at all times. It was a mess and it led
to fights so we thought okay, bags are a problem; maybe a bag closet
will solve that. But the guests we serve are also very cautious of space
because they’re in protective mode all the time. So we developed a
process where somebody would come after service was over and dismiss by
row. We started real quickly becoming offensive instead of responding
after an incident. We began thinking, “How can we avoid the things that
are making them uncomfortable?”. Your thoughts are usually from your
perspective and none of us have lived out there. So we all had to stop
thinking our way and start thinking their way. The ones who were
successfully able to do that were the best at adapting to support them
and that is what we are here for: to support them.
So then when we got the basic processes down, we started expanding to
other programs like Bible study and movie night. On Saturdays we would
bring them in and have hot dogs, popcorn, chili, big pickles, and candy.
It cost you a quarter, but we knew most of them didn’t even have a
quarter. The few that did work were so happy that they could pay for
something and even pay for somebody else. If they didn’t have a quarter,
we had someone who walked around with a bunch of quarters to hand out.
We tried to keep their dignity but also make them feel like they had
accomplished something.
We started other projects along the way. We had a women’s life skills
class which lasted for 3 years. We also started an art program once a
month. We offered everything from canvas painting to woodwork, to
leather goods. If they painted a picture that somebody could hang up on
their wall, we would sell it. At the end of the year, we held a big
artist market where we would sell their creations.
And then, of course, COVID hit. We only closed for one day. We
realized restaurants are shut, shelters are shut. Who’s going to feed
them? We had both families who used to be homeless, but they still came
to us since we were their church, and people who live on the street. So
we were blessed by several organizations who said, “Yes, we will step
up.” Christian Assistance Ministry and Catholic Worker House did
breakfast and lunch, Travis Park did a meal one night a week, and we
started with dinner six nights which eventually turned to seven nights a
week for the unsheltered homeless in the whole downtown area. We went
from three nights a week to seven and that was rough.
Being in the military, I’ve done a lot of assembly-line processes, so
it didn’t really take us long to figure out the plating and serving.
What was a little bit of a challenge was to go from only three nights a
week to every single night and to lose 50% of the churches and community
groups who supported us before COVID because the virus was so unknown. I
had a few friends that just jumped right in. The pastors of another
church who were friends of mine asked, “What do you need?”. I told them
we needed people to cook and serve. So they took on every Monday which
really blessed us. We had more and more groups offer to take on shifts
and they filled in a lot of our holes. Between March and December, we
served over 55,000 meals and this year we’re on track to serve over
50,000 meals.
Before COVID hit and the world shut down, we held a large strategic
planning session. We wanted to take a good look with a lot of different
eyes to determine who we had become. Who are we serving? Why are we
serving? What are our dreams? We were a church who had done many things
for the homeless community, but in the end, what are we achieving? And
what are we doing to help them get off the street? So I think
collectively, we all agreed that our foundational belief is not in what
we do for them here. It’s really more about their eternal end than it is
about feeding their belly today. After 11 months of discussions every
other week, we decided to move from a church that had some programs for
the homeless to a Christ-centered ministry that also had their church.
The other concern we had was that the programs had really grown with
only a few of us to manage them. The kitchen has become a robust
community-based program where churches and other groups came in, brought
and cooked food, plated and served it, then cleaned and went home. We
knew we needed to expand this model throughout the remainder of the
program. With that in mind, we also changed our name to Communities
Under the Bridge to represent all of the larger church family that now
comes to help us deliver services and the Gospel to the homeless and
others in need.
In a year of loss and uncertainty was born a new, greater vision for
us. Joining together with many others who have the same heart to serve
those in need, we will now be able to expand and do greater things in
the future.
Story: Allison Vasak, Photographs: Allison Vasak