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- An RV from Community Health Care visits the parking lot of St. John Lutheran Church in Rock Island, Ill., to supply medical assistance to the community. Photos: Courtesy of St. John
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- St. John offers free weekly meals and fresh produce to community members.
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- St. John also offers free clothing and personal care items to the community.
In church, we’re often reminded to remember and pray for our neighbors in poverty and in need. Proverbs 19 tells us to be kind to them. To be the hands and feet of Jesus, though, we need to do for them.
That’s what St. John Lutheran Church in Rock Island, Ill., along with its in-house partner organizations, Palomares Social Justice Center and Catalyst Kitchen, is striving to do.
St. John offers free weekly meals as well as free clothing, personal care items and fresh produce to community members. The congregation offers a participatory worship service called Table Grace Ministries, held at the same time in an adjacent space.
In June, Palomares received a $195,000, three-year grant from the Better Health Foundation that offers food as well as education and medical services to those in St. John’s reach. With that funding, an RV—or “med truck,” as it’s known—from the organization Community Health Care (CHC) will now occupy the St. John parking lot four times a year to supply medical assistance to those who need it.
“Who knew that our parking lot would be one of those avenues of doing for our neighbors?”
“Who knew that our parking lot would be one of those avenues of doing for our neighbors?” said Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez, pastor of St. John. “The Holy Spirit has been moving with a force that I could not have predicted. Every time I speak [about this venture], I am brought to tears.”
The initial seed money for starting a Sunday-evening free community meal came from a St. John congregant. But Samantha Wright, president of Palomares, also applied for and received several grants that, in addition to the Better Health Foundation award, will help expand the project’s outreach.
“Our goal is to create more relationships with Community Health Care and our community,” Wright said.
A deeper community connection
The med truck first visited St. John in July, the second visit will be this month, and visits will follow every three months afterward. “We are still determining where the needs lie,” said Ellie Kenney, CHC population health manager.
“Do we need to ID those with no primary care providers or those who need behavioral health services?” she said. “In July, we offered child physicals, which went well. In October, we will offer flu shots. We also are considering dental care.”
On Sept. 28, CHC first offered its education services to those in need at St. John. “We want to create an awareness,” Kenney said. “Our goal is to increase education regarding mental health, whether it’s for oneself or one’s family, so that [people] know the signs and the symptoms. We want people to know where they can receive services and decrease the stigma of mental [illness].”
The educational aspect of the program will be offered the last Sunday of each month going forward, in conjunction with Table Grace. Leadership is shared by all participants in the service, held Sunday evenings so that volunteers can be fed spiritually as well as physically.
Together the meals feed about 80 people per week.
St. John began Table Grace in partnership with Palomares in January 2024, as an experiment. “The Spirit wasn’t done with us, though,” said Ohman-Rodriguez. The ministry evolved as the congregation sought to meet its community’s needs. “One year after we started Sunday evenings, we started Welcome Wednesdays,” she said.
The Welcome Wednesdays ministry— made possible by a New Ministry Development grant from the ELCA churchwide organization and an outreach grant from the Northern Illinois Synod—now includes a lay-led prayer service, chair yoga, crafts, fellowship, choir practice and a free community meal.
Together the meals feed about 80 people per week.
Congregation members have told Ohman-Rodriguez that they have gotten to know their neighbors in a whole new way—their names, stories, challenges, successes and hopes. And St. John’s neighbors know the church is rooted in the community they all call home. Together they will continue to seek God’s guidance, she said.
“Nothing is happening at St. John’s without the ongoing presence of God,” Ohman-Rodriguez concluded.
