The Jubilee Café, which serves free meals on Mondays and is hosted at the Community United Church of Christ, celebrated its fourth anniversary at the beginning of the month.

The café has been operating since October of 2017 and serves free, hot, nutritious meals to community members every Monday from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the café was a sit-down experience, where guests would come into the fellowship hall of the church and sit down to eat. Jubilee volunteers would take their drink orders and serve them at the table. 

However, like all things in the world, the café had to change the way it served food.

“They did not miss a beat when COVID hit,” said Carla Rush, office manager at the church.

She says they figured out how to change their approach so they could still serve people in the community. 

The café now works more like a take-out restaurant. Upon arriving at the church, a menu is provided to guests. They choose which hot meal they want, if they want a “heat at home” meal, then if they want desert and fresh produce. 

The church partners with different places in the community to help provide food. According to their website, the church partners with the Common Ground Food Co-op to receive weekly food donations. They also purchase food from the Eastern Illinois Food Bank.

Along with the meals every week, on the back of the food menu, the church provides access to take home food and hygiene items like masks, hand sanitizer, hand warmers, condoms and menstruation kits. 

While the food may be the attraction, many guests, like graduate student Harrison Price, come back because of the community the church and the café create. 

“I initially walked in the church one day just because I saw all of the flags,” said Harrison Price. “(I saw) the Pride flags and the Black Lives Matter flags and I was like ‘Oh this is a place that’s actually inclusive and accepting.” 

The day Price first went to the church just happened to be a Monday. Price was invited to the café that night and found a “nice and warm and welcoming” environment, something she hadn’t found in a church setting for a long time. 

Earlier this year, the Champaign County Regional Planning Committee reported that a total of 148 individuals were identified without a home. 

In February of 2020, The Daily Illini reported that one in six undergraduate students were food insecure, which refers to a lack of consistent access to healthy, nourishing foods due to financial barriers. 

Lily Holmes, second year graduate student in FAA, thinks the fact that no questions are asked is important to the people who come to the church. 

“The other thing that I think is really important about this is that it’s all healthy food,” Holmes said. “They work really hard to make sure you get a lot of food groups but also the take home aspects of it. There are no questions asked.” 

The café continues every week and served 104 meals on Oct. 11.

@brendyn_jones

[email protected]