SANDUSKY — Victory Kitchen's mission is to be a helping hand for the lost and hurting people in the Sandusky community.
Pastor David Walters and his father began passing out free hot plates outside of a truck. Eventually, they raised enough money to buy a home located on Hayes Avenue along North Depot Street. Opening a dinner hall for guests and eventually becoming a place for people to take showers, get counseling, hygiene products and groceries.
"My father saw a need, and when my father first started it, it was about the poo. Now it's about the community and those trying to make it,” Walters said.
When the kitchen first opened in 1991, they served around 75 people a week. 30 years later, they serve up to 300-400 people a day. Walters says their biggest uptick came after the pandemic.
“We see a lot of middle-class folks coming in that's working two to three jobs, and they can't make ends meet in the economy that we're in. And it breaks your heart because when they come in, they look at you and they say, we never done nothing like this before,” Walters said.
Due to COVID-19 and the lack of space, the kitchen had to close the dining hall and create a to-go window. Hoping it would be temporary until they found a bigger space.
“We have a lot of elderly people who come in and eat because the medication says eat with dinner, and they have nobody to eat dinner with. That's why I want to get this place open back up,” Walters said.
As well as missing the fellowship, Walters bought the former station house saloon just down the block from the kitchen. The building is in need of remodeling but will be transformed into the new community dining space.
“We got to get the fellowship back with the people, [and] COVID-19 caused a lot of depression and anxiety because people were being by themselves. But we got to come back together, and we got to break the anxiety, and we got to break at depression. We can't break it if we stay separate,” said Walters.
They plan to open the new dining hall in the summer of 2025, and residents like Gary Marcum are excited.
“I’m very grateful for what the kitchen does for people, sitting down and having a meal and breaking bread, not only food bread, but spiritual bread,” Marcum said.
Marcum says Victory Kitchen gave him hope he never had.
“If you want to receive encouragement or want to have something positive in life then come to the kitchen. If we didn't have victory kitchen, I would have nothing because it’s really nothing in Sandusky that gives us the same support,” Marcum said.
