Our Daily Bread, located at 125 S. Central Ave., Lima., offers breakfast, lunch and dinner to the hungry.
Precious Grundy | The Lima News
LIMA — Our Daily Bread is a soup kitchen that focuses on sharing food and the gospel. The organization began more than 20 years ago and still provides meals five days a week to community members.
“It started in 1991,” Director Randy Kimpel said. “It was church people for change and reconciliation.”
Kimpel also said any community member can come and receive food.
“You do not have to be on Social Security or homeless,” Kimpel said. “We welcome everybody. Sometimes there are crews working downtown who come over for lunch, and they leave a donation. The majority of our people are low-income or on a fixed income.”
The organization reportedly sees an increase in numbers at the end of each month. Kimpel also said he noticed an increase of the homeless population in the last three years.
Our Daily Bread receives no government funding. Kimpel said every year they simply accept donations from the community. The director said he began as a volunteer and decided to stay.
“The first day, it just changed my life,” Kimpel said. “No matter what you have going on in your life, you can come here and realize it is nothing compared to what some of the people going through. It just woke me up.
“It has been an amazing nine years— we put God first here. It is amazing to see how God has taken care of us over the years.”
At the beginning of his time as director, Kimpel said the organization prayed for potatoes after discovering they only had a few left. Later that afternoon, one community member called and gave a cart full of potatoes. Kimpel said the organization had potatoes for the rest of the summer from the donation.
As the organization moves forward, they have plans to renovate the exterior of the building.
“We have had an issue of people living on our porch after hours,” Kimpel said. “They like it here because we have cameras. That is one reason we want to get rid of the porch. We will get white metal out front and everything. Hopefully, we get the parking lot renovated at some point.”
Our Daily Bread is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. at 125 S. Central Ave., Lima.
“We serve doughnuts and coffee from 9 a.m. until 9:30 a.m.,” Kimpel said. “We do lunches from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. We do dinners from 4:30 p.m. until 5:15 p.m. We have clothes, household items, hygiene products and showers — that is pretty much what we do here. We try to provide hope.”
CELEBRATING OUR SPIRIT
Many businesses and organizations started right here in the Lima region, with the goal of making an impact in the region. This year’s Celebrating Our Spirit looks at those trailblazers. Read more stories at LimaOhio.com/tag/spirit.
Reach Precious Grundy at 567-242-0351.
