VOA Special English TV – Steve Badt Serves Meals to the Homeless

Steve Badt prepares meals for people who have no place to live in Washington, D.C.

Steve Badt starts work early, while most people are sleeping. He supervises meal preparation for more than two hundred people. Badt left his job in the restaurant industry seven years ago. He wanted to continue his education and do something different.

He now works for Miriams Kitchen, a not-for-profit group. It has been serving meals to homeless men and women for more than twenty-five years. The government says more than thirty-six million Americans do not get enough to eat. Many are homeless.

STEVE BADT: “At seven oclock, we will open up the hot (food) line, and that is what everyone is working on. These guys over here are cracking eggs, preparing to do scrambled eggs. We are making biscuits here. These are cream biscuits. Another volunteer (is) on the griddle with ham. We have home fries over there going on. And, a fruit salad over here. Our goal is by 7 a.m. to have all this ready to go to serve a hot meal.

The work is not easy for the volunteers at Miriams Kitchen. But Steve Badt has a waiting list of willing workers. Badt says he wanted to change the way soup kitchens like Miriams Kitchen operate. He would like to make them more energetic, like the restaurants where he was trained.

There is no lack of comments about the food.

STEVE BADT: Seeing them every day in the morning and having them come up to me and going, Oh, that was a great meal. That feels pretty good. Once in a while, they will go, That was a great meal, but those biscuits, ehhh! So they are pretty blunt with their criticism. But I like that. I like opinionated customers, just like in the restaurants.

Homeless people come to Miriams Kitchen to seek advice or get help in finding a place to live. But workers say what the homeless want most is Steve Badts hot meals. I’m Faith Lapidus.