History of The Dragon Café
Welcome to the Dragon Café at St. George’s Episcopal Church in New Orleans, LA. By visiting our website, we hope that you are considering serving and supporting the Dragon Café Feeding Ministry. To support the Dragon Café, you can donate online by clicking on the secure link Dragon Café donation website or by contacting our Ministry Director, Stan Jahncke, at dragoncafe@stgeorge-nola.org or calling St. George’s Church: (504) 899-2811 ext. 208. To assist you with understanding the Dragon Café Ministry and how you can support the Dragon Café, we encourage you to read about the Dragon Cafe below.
The Dragon Café: Serving the neighbors God has given us
In the fall of 2005, during the early days of recovery following Hurricane Katrina, St. George’s parishioners opened the doors of the Church to begin serving hot meals, support and fellowship to parishioners whose homes were flooded and kitchens destroyed. In the coming months, however, we found ourselves feeding our neighbors, relief workers, and many volunteers helping in the aftermath of the Hurricane. As a result, St. George's became a place where our neighbors gathered to eat a hot meal, reunite with friends, share their stories, and relax in a safe environment. Our goal was to serve food that was hot, hearty, and made with love.
Since the fall of 2005, St. George's has remained committed to its core mission of “Doing God’s work by feeding and offering fellowship to the hungry citizens of New Orleans and to those volunteers supporting the recovery and rebuilding of our city.” Today, our Ministry still serves hot meals in a caring and safe environment in the kitchen and dining area at St. George’s Church. We still offer fellowship and a place to relax and eat a hot meal and to share a story.
This ministry of feeding, however, has grown in many wondrous ways. In 2008, the Dragon Café will serve approximately 13,000 hot meals. We serve two nights per week averaging 125 meals per night. We serve the needy in our community, including the homeless. We serve those neighbors who may still have a home, but must often chose to pay a necessary expense such as rent, and forego the “luxury” of a hot meal. We serve many wonderful volunteers from all over the United States who descend upon our community to help rebuild our city. Often these volunteers are housed in “dormitory” like accommodations, and do not have access to a kitchen. These volunteers include Episcopal Relief, “Americorp”, and Catholic Charities. At the Dragon Café, every meal is free and we serve anyone seeking a hot meal and fellowship; we serve our neighbors. In addition to the meals served by the volunteers of Dragon Café, we provide the use of our kitchen facilities to another local feeding ministry, the Desmond Project, who themselves prepare and deliver approximately 10,000 meals per year to the homeless in downtown New Orleans each Saturday night. Combined, nearly 23,000 meals will be prepared and served annually from the kitchen of the Dragon Café at St. George’s Church in New Orleans. God is good!
The quantity of meals served is only part of the magnitude of the Dragon Café Ministry. Except for our full time Director and our security service, the Dragon Café operates on a fully volunteer basis. Cooking, serving meals, and cleaning are accomplished through the service of volunteers from St. George’s Church, other local Episcopal Churches, local high schools and universities, and those wonderful out of state volunteers who find the energy to serve in the Dragon Café after a full day’s work rebuilding homes in New Orleans. The true magnitude of the Dragon Café Ministry is measured by its ability to provide an opportunity for all to serve our neighbors in “Doing God’s work by feeding and offering fellowship to the hungry citizens of New Orleans and to those volunteers supporting the recovery and rebuilding of our city.”
Lastly, as we ask for your support to continue “Doing God’s work”, we emphasize that the Dragon Café will be good stewards of that support. The Dragon Café is operated by a Director reporting to a Board consisting of parishioners from St. George’s Church, Clergy, leadership from the Diocese of Louisiana as well as from our partner parish, St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Barrington, Il., and community volunteers. In 2008, the total cost to serve a hot, home cooked meal was less than seven dollars per plate. And as we increased the number of plates served in 2008, the average cost per plate declined; even during a year of historic food inflation. In 2008, we embarked on a plan to expand our kitchen’s capacity and improve its energy efficiency in order to further reduce average costs in the future.
The Dragon Café is open Wednesday and Thursday from 4:30 – 6:30 pm. A service of Holy Eucharist is held in conjunction with the Café at 6PM every Wednesday. Many Dragon Café guests have begun to attend this service. Please join our efforts to feed the people of New Orleans in heart, mind, spirit and strength.
