ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 17, 1997 TAG: 9703170030
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: JOANNE POINDEXTER THE ROANOKE TIMES
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on Mar. 18.
Correction
Donna Cone's name was incorrect in a story Monday about a cook at the
Shepherd's Table in Bedford.
Evelyn Booker, 72, is a fixture at the Shepherd's Table, an ecumenical lunch program run by Bedford churches.
The Wednesday volunteers at the Shepherd's Table have a saying: "When Miss Evie ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."
One of them even embroidered an apron with the saying on it, and Evelyn Booker keeps it in a drawer with her dishcloths.
Booker, however, is unlikely to be unhappy as long as someone is eating her macaroni and cheese with a touch of mustard and there's a vegetable at each meal.
The other volunteers also know that "chef" Booker likes things to be in order, and that means the food must be presented in an appetizing manner and everyone must get along.
They also know not to touch Booker's dishcloth - the one she constantly washes to wipe off the countertops and the immediate area where she's cooking.
Some call her "Evie," "Ev" or "Sarge," but it doesn't bother Booker as long as they are enjoying themselves at the Shepherd's Table and come back to help out again.
Booker has become the inspiration for the Shepherd's Table, an ecumenical lunch program housed in the same Washington Street building as the Bedford Christian Ministries and Bedford's free clinic.
Organizers got Booker involved in the early stages after a similar lunch program she started at her church, Washington Street Baptist, ended.
When everyone else had doubts about how to start the Shepherd's Table, though, Booker didn't worry.
```Just have a little faith and start,' she told us," said Ellen Foster, co-chairwoman of the board of directors. "She's our biggest asset even though she's only one of our cooks."
Booker, a 72-year-old retired dietetics researcher, has been a constant with the lunch program that provides hot meals and what she calls "good fellowship" three days a week to Bedford residents who are alone, lonely, elderly, want a quick meal, or just can't afford a midday meal. Diners include couples, mothers with young children, downtown workers and retirees. Some people leave donations; some can't afford to.
When the Shepherd's Table started more than five years ago, it served meals only on Wednesdays but has since expanded to Mondays and Fridays.
Several Bedford-area churches provide volunteers, donations and food for the program, which served more than 9,400 meals last year and anticipates serving 13,000 this year on a $25,000 budget.
"We figure it cost us - the food and supplies - a little over a dollar a meal," said Foster, the board co-chairwoman.
Booker and Donna Conner usually plan the menus a week in advance; when Booker arrives about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, all she has to do is start cooking. She insists, the other volunteers say, that a vegetable is served with each meal.
"I enjoy coming here," Booker said. She thinks it's her mission from God. But until she started cooking cornbread and beans for the program at her church, she admitted, she had never cooked for more than a dozen or so people at one time. She comes from a family of seven children and made her first cake as a young girl without a mixer.
"We didn't have one then," she said.
She periodically cooked for family gatherings, but never as much food as she prepares each Wednesday to feed the 50 to 60 people who have been having hot meals at the Shepherd's Table.
Donna Conner, who lines up Wednesday volunteers, jokingly claims that Booker was selected as cook because "she's really the only one who knew how to cook for 100 people," and, "She helps us keep our sanity."
Booker retired to Bedford County with her late husband, who had grown up here, in the early 1980s. After he died in 1985, she didn't want to move back to New York, where she had worked at a veterans administration hospital, or return to Baltimore, her hometown.
So, she became more involved in the community. In addition to serving meals at her church, she sang in a choir and volunteered to distribute food for the Bedford Christian Ministries. She exercises regularly and spends free time working on crafts.
But she is committed to the Shepherd's Table.
She will take a trip, maybe leaving on a Thursday, but always returning on Monday or Tuesday in time to be at the Shepherd's Table on Wednesday morning. Booker said she's missed one or two Wednesdays; other volunteers vaguely remember her ever being away.
The fellowship, she said, is the key to her commitment to the program. She's made many friends with the volunteers and diners. She sees some of them socially.
One diner, who moved to Roanoke, still drops by some Wednesdays to sample Booker's meals. "He leaves a donation," she quickly added.
Joyce Williams, a retired stockbroker, complains when she's not called to come in and help out on Wednesdays. "It's just a pleasure here," she said.
The Shepherd's Table at 217 W. Washington St. serves meals Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. For information, call 586-6820.
LENGTH: Long : 109 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS THE ROANOKE TIMES. 1. Fortunatelyby CNBfor the people who partake of the Shepherd's Table on Wednesdays,
Evelyn Booker is unlikely to be unhappy as long as someone is eating
her macaroni and cheese with a touch of mustard and there's a
vegetable at each meal. 2. Evelyn Booker zooms through the kitchen,
preparing lunch for Bedford residents who are alone, lonely,
elderly, want a quick meal, or just can't afford a midday meal.
color. 3. Barbara Hurt has a smoke while waiting for the Shepherd's
Table in Bedford to open for lunch Wednesday.