“We have fed 2400 meals so far. It will be 7600 meals after this weekend because groups are coming to help.”

“My work is calling every day asking when I am going back and I keep telling them not yet. I am worried about next week when everyone goes back to work.”

“Most people can take off 4-5 days, but most people around here are hourly. Fortunately for me, my company told me to answer calls and do what I can. They are flooded too and I should be there helping them, but I don’t have time. I went to see a guy today who worked for me and it broke my heart. His house is 8 feet off the ground and took in 44 inches of water. He is retirement age. What is he going to do?”

“Pulling stuff out of the house was the easy part. Now comes the waiting. Everyone is waiting on the same thing and there won’t be enough supplies.”

“My son said it best, ‘I kind of feel guilty that we didn’t get flooded.’ I am not making up for that, but if we didn’t do this, who would? They would have sat around waiting on the Red Cross forever. I was in front of the Red Cross feeding people by 2 or 3 days. I know how to put all of this together. I do the cooking and feeding every year on a mission trip in Nicaragua. A lot of people around here are poor and we didn’t know it. They stay to themselves, almost out of sight, out of mind, but this hit them. 80 to 90 percent of the members of our church are flooded. That is just the ones we know. It is hard to get out of bed, but once I get up it is OK. It is hard to go to sleep because I can’t turn it off.”

“We work on this about 13 hours a day. We start at 6 in the morning and do all of the cooking in our kitchen. Fix lunch, clean the kitchen, deliver, serve and then start on supper. It is nonstop, but this is the most important mission trip we have ever done, right here from our home. We say love your neighbor, this is it. Saving one starfish at a time. I hold on to that.”

“This is contagious. Our neighbors have gotten involved and others started doing the same thing in their own areas. I am getting more out of this because it is contagious. You give people supper and they are so thankful, some can’t say anything. My goal is to keep this going through next weekend and then do a really big lunch during the week and meals on weekends. It evolved from a pot of white beans that I had cooked for a police benefit after the shootings. The cancelled the event and I saved the beans. The church down the street took in people and said they needed help feeding so I had the beans and a friend cooked rice. Supper was over, what are we doing from breakfast. Our neighbors cleaned our pantries for breakfast. Alright, let’s do lunch. The church wasn’t set up to be a shelter but we had to do it anyway.”

“Mickey has the ability to calm people down and make jokes and make you feel like it is going to be OK. He is encouraging but has no hesitation telling you what he needs. He is something else. “