It was raining Thursday evening again, and a chunk of Valparaiso was still dark and without power after Tuesday’s storm and the ones that followed.
But inside Nana Clare’s Kitchen on the city’s north side, the lights were on and the kitchen buzzed with activity. Volunteers chopped vegetables and made tomato-topped ugly bread, put green mac and cheese into to-go containers, and kept up with cleaning the dishes.
Steph Talarek, who lives in Porter, founded Feed the Region in January and started providing free meals in February. Talarek relies on donations and hopes to get nonprofit status soon.
For now, her focus is on providing free meals to whoever needs them, regardless of income or residency. She is considering expansion to Lake County, looking at a couple of locations there, and would like to offer free meals throughout the six-county region.
Thursday evening, the mission was specific to the moment — providing more than 300 meals to whoever needed them, including deliveries.
More than 20 people crowded into Nana Clare’s to help with meal prep and distribution. Recipients also could receive a small vase of flowers, culled and donated from Chesterton’s community garden.
“This has always been in the back of our head,” said Talarek, dressed in a brown Feed the Region T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing a blue Igloo cooler fanny pack.
Talarek works in the software industry and her husband, Adam Stranc, is a scheduler for Cleveland Cliffs. They’ve struggled in the past but always looked ahead.
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“Once we figure it out, we give back,” Talarek said she and Stranc decided. “And everything seems to have gotten harder in the past year, so it seemed like the time.”
Feed the Region provides free meals every Thursday evening, usually around 100 or so, put together with the help of six or eight volunteers. Talarek, a DeMotte native, took sandwiches and drinks to the Wheatfield area after an April tornado hit there, but everybody was doing OK.
The post-storm meal giveaway in Valparaiso was different.
“This is the first one where it’s all about the storm. No one has power,” Talarek said.
In social media posts, Talarek encouraged folks to pick up meals for others. One person planned to pick up 15 meals to distribute, Talarek said.
Talarek is “really, really good with social media,” said Jody Gawthrop of Hobart, who learned about Feed the Region on Facebook and got involved in the effort earlier this year because it looked interesting.
Gawthrop likes Feed the Region’s mission of providing free meals to anyone who needs them, and also the delivery effort underway Thursday evening.
“We’re pretty excited about getting out there,” she said. “It’s for anybody. Everybody is so welcome to work with us.”
Amy Hess and her son Brenden, 10, wrapped up ugly bread for transport. Brenden put each piece in foil and put them in zip-close bags.
The Hess family lives in Valparaiso. Amy said Brenden has tagged along with her a couple of times to help out with food prep for Feed the Region. She first connected with Talarek because Hess makes sourdough bread at home and Talarek started buying it.
Brenden, his mom said, is already talking about doing a lemonade stand to raise money for Feed the Region, “if the weather ever clears.”
Thursday, though, he was intent on wrapping up the bread for distribution.
“As long as he has a job, he’s good,” she said.
Brenden, who will be a fifth grader at Cooks Corners Elementary School, said he’s taken cooking classes at Nana Clare’s Kitchen and doesn’t mind helping out with meal prep.
“I think it’s fun and it helps me cook for when I’m older,” he said, adding his favorite kitchen task is “probably helping my mom make bread.”
Carol Presdorf of Hobart started volunteering this summer because she wants to support Talarek’s mission.
Thursday, she helped with dishes.
“I usually cut vegetables and then clean up because I don’t cook,” she said with a smile.
In addition to the pasta and bread, Talarek said the group would probably make chili, too. Cans of beans lined the stainless steel countertop in the kitchen, at the ready.
“We just want to make the whole freezer,” she said, adding the location never lost power during the storm and has been freezing food over time.
“This is the reason we had it stored up,” she said. “It’s time to go.”
For more information about Feed the Region, go to www.feedtheregion.org.
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