best. $43. ever. straight from the heart.

UCBK's Free Friday Lunch, in the Parish Hall
at St. Michael's Catholic Church, Boulder Creek, CA

A couple weeks ago, a huge surprise happened, for UCBK volunteers staffing the Free Friday Lunch program we offer at St. Michael's Catholic Church every Friday, for the homeless and needy in our community....

Many of the lunch attendees have been counting on the free lunch provided by UCBK, every Friday, since November of 2009. 

The lunch is an all-volunteer effort, mostly funded by UCBK but also out-of-pocket from the kind volunteers. It is truly a labor of love, from the Little Temple That Could. 

(Our stalwart volunteers have been cooking, serving, setting up and cleaning up for this beautiful 'banquet' of a lunch, for all these years.) We've served in excess of 6000 nourishing, love-filled, warm lunches since the program's inception.

The folks who come to the lunch are regulars who attend 'for the great food and company,' as Gary, a man who takes the bus for over an hour -- each way -- to attend the lunch told the Santa Cruz Sentinel reporter writing a story about UCBK and our work.

After years of UCBK's dedicated volunteers giving love and food to the homeless and needy in our community -- the community of homeless and needy decided to give back.

They invited the Free Lunch staff to a 'thank you' party at a local coffeehouse, just after the lunch. 

What our staff DIDN'T realize was that this party was more than a nice gathering of happy grateful people, with music provided by The Sand Band, a group of Free Lunch Friday regular attendees.....



After the Sand Band played their music -- they passed the hat for donations --

AS A BENEFIT FOR UCBK.

These beautiful homeless and needy people in our community wanted to pour the love back to UCBK!

They collected -- from their fellow homeless and needy friends -- a total of $43. 

And gave it as a donation so UCBK can keep doing its work, and keep our facility.

There are no words for this unbelievable kindness, and generosity.  Everyone was in tears.  I'm in tears again, just writing about it. 

And we all know -- at UCBK -- that energetically, this $43 is one of the most potent, powerful donations we will ever receive...  and that the immense love it represents may very well be the cornerstone of our fund-raising success to keep the UCBK facility going.

It is precious.  That $43 came straight from the hearts of people who have nothing. 

& that is everything!!!!!!

I wanted to share this story as an example of the miracles that happen, every day, through UCBK's work in our local area.  

And to show just how much, how very much, our simple work over years is felt -- like ripples in a pond -- in our community of homeless and needy people.

You can see a video of the lunch here, and another video of our healing work with the homeless & our local veterans' community by clicking here...

& click here to read about our efforts to keep the UCBK temple facility going in the face of a proposed sale by the  landlady, who really would like to sell it to UCBK... all that stands in the way is about $230,000. 

donations are always welcome!


& thank you for reading this story. (& sharing it, if you feel moved to do so.)