Feeding the hungry

Most people who know Rose Adams know her simply as “Mama Rose.” And the name is appropriate. For the past 20 years, she’s worked hard to grow her family through weekly Sunday dinners, prepared from scratch and offered at her home.

“Thanksgiving is really important to me because a lot of the homeless don’t have families to go home to,” Adams said last week, just a few days before her biggest Sunday dinner of the year, Thanksgiving.

Adams started hosting the weekly dinners to offer homeless or struggling families a place to have a family meal. She liked that about the Waltons, she said. “They’d go to church and then have dinner together on Sundays. There always should be family time.”

There was a time when Adams and her four children were homeless, so she knows firsthand how hard it can be to raise a family without a home. Among the biggest struggles was finding time with her kids to enjoy their meals, and also to ensure her family was eating nutritious foods.

“I am a firm believer in three staples: starch, vegetables and meat,” she said. She incorporates all three into every meal. Whenever possible, she buys fresh produce—nothing in cans—and prepares the meals herself.

“It’s all me,” she said. “Why do you think people call it ‘Mama Rose’s Dinner’?”

Buckeye Russell is a regular diner at Mama Rose’s. One of his favorite meals is her fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. He also loves the pork roast, he said.

“Without Mama Rose, we would all go hungry,” Russell said. “Thanks to Mama Rose, we have full stomachs.”

Standing outside her Nord Avenue apartment, Adams—with Russell’s help—counted boxes and cans stacked on a table for the feast. “I still need three more turkeys, pumpkin pies, Jell-O ….” Behind her, three men sorted cans and bottles. Every day, Adams heads out on the town to collect recyclables, which she turns in to fund her meals.

“I jump in Dumpsters. I do what I have to to feed these people,” she said. “A lot of people think people who jump in Dumpsters are doing it for drug money, or beer money. I do it for other people, for the smile on their faces.”

On an ordinary week, Adams feeds between 20 and 60 people—the number gets bigger toward the end of the month. That costs about $150-$200 a week, she said. Thanksgiving is a different story.

“Last year I had 300 people,” she said. This year, the turnout was closer to 225, she said, but still there was no food left over.

Adams enlisted the help of 12 neighbors who were willing to donate their ovens to cook turkeys for the feast. Her family also pitched in, as a nasty cold took hold of Adams just before the big day. Nonetheless, early Sunday afternoon, the parking lot outside her apartment was filled with a few dozen hungry patrons eyeing the turkeys, stuffing, potato salad and other fixings. They would trickle in throughout the day, Adams said.

Most of the places around town will fill a plate for people and either there’s not enough food or there’s too much, which means waste, she said. “I always let them fix their own plates. It makes it feel more like home.”