For these Fil-Ams, doing God’s work (in the kitchen) keeps them going
On Wednesdays, Grace Pitoy-Ngatia, the Filipino American managing the community kitchen at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Sacramento, California, is already at the Sunrise Christian Food Ministry, a food bank, by 9:40 a.m.
With her is Mike Flanigan, a volunteer from the Latter Day Saints, into whose van they transfer the items from the pallets (“They used to give us boxes but now it’s pallets”) waiting for them. These are ingredients and supplies for the weekly dinner Pitoy-Ngatia and her team of volunteers are preparing that day.
Pitoy-Ngatia operates on a three-month menu cycle. One week she’d serve pork ribs barbecue and corned beef casserole, with corn bread, corn, and baked beans, finished off with fruits. The following week, it’s a Peruvian feast of aji de galena (chicken with spicy yellow sauce), arroz amarillo, and leche flan. Then there’s a Hawaiian spread of chicken barbecue and macaroni salad.
Filipino dishes—chicken adobo, lumpia, pancit (bam-i or bihon or miki or canton)—are always a hit, even though there hasn’t ever been any Filipino among the kitchen’s “customers.”
Sometimes it’s beef stew with garlic bread. Or beef enchilada, lasagna-style, with Spanish rice and refried beans. And salmon oreganata (bursting with olives and sun-dried tomatoes), orzo, and rice pilaf with with steamed broccolini. Or succotash, a mélange of mixed vegetables.
With their food supplies, Flanigan and Pitoy-Ngatia head for the St. Joseph Hall at the Holy Family Church in Citrus Heights. This is the community kitchen, with industrial-sized sinks, spacious work tables, heavy-duty stoves and ovens, refrigerators and freezers, and walk-in freezer pantries—the central nervous system of a sprawling dining room with a performing stage at one end.
‘Love in Action’
Soon, the kitchen’s volunteers arrive. One of them is wearing a black T-shirt announcing the name of the community kitchen, “Love in Action.” At the back of the shirt is printed St. Francis of Assisi’s words: “For it is in giving that we receive.”
The kitchen began over 30 years ago upon the auspices of the late Nora Martinez, a parishioner. When she passed on, the parish asked Pitoy-Ngatia, a longtime volunteer renowned for her cooking, to take over the project in October 2021.
When Pitoy-Ngatia got started, her friends pitched in: Mariceli Lugma and her friend Michael Brisentine, Raine and Mike Fenton, Jaylin Uy, Mayette Delfin, Myra Empleo, Grace Dionisio, Tisay Respecia—and, always, the affable Dr. Johnny and Debbie Auza.
Some of Pitoy-Ngatia’s friends brought 18 turkeys and pies during Thanksgiving. Her friends from Folsom and El Dorado took care of a Christmas lunch, with gift packs and a raffle of gift cards.
The Catholic Ladies Relief Society also gave cash. So did the Homeless Assistance Resource Team, a nongovernmental organization in Citrus Heights, which also helps the kitchen’s customers who need clothes and even jobs.
Today’s menu features picadillo, ground beef simmering with nibbly bits of potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes, as well as chicken sofrito, a savory stew donated by participating restaurants in the area.
Volunteers
The volunteers begin to get busy—washing, drying, peeling, chopping, slicing, apportioning, cleaning. There’s Marites Nadela-Solon, from Carcar, Cebu; Elizabeth Halbert, from Tagbilaran, Bohol; Prolie Doloritos-Mandin, from Dauis, Panglao in Bohol; and Debbie Auza, the ever-reliable benefactor, who’s from Zamboanga del Sur. At the stove, Ildebrando “Tata” Danao, from Pardo, Cebu, via New York, is manning a custom-built huge, rectangular vat to cook the picadillo.
Tricia Lynch, a church volunteer, is also helping out. So is Vicente Medina, from Guadalajara, Mexico, who got married in the church here 20 years ago. And the burrito man, Charles Villalobos, a retired chef, master of the kitchen’s Mexican menu.
“The Scripture says we should help and serve others. That’s what this kitchen is about,” says Flanigan. “As you can see, here we’ve got a lot happening and a lot of laughter—you can’t ask for a better group of people to work with in doing God’s work.”
Doing God’s work keeps Rolando “Jun” Delfin Jr. going. A phlebotomist from Dauin, Negros Oriental, Delfin was devastated when his prostate cancer, which had been in remission, came back the other year. The doctor said it was already in his lungs. The news came after a string of deaths in his family.
“I thought of ending it all, but I have no gun,” says Delfin. “My fellow choir members and the priest talked me through that moment in my life, and now being active in the choir and in this kitchen makes me realize it’s not about me. It’s about helping others. It’s about doing God’s work.”
Lifesaver
This is God’s work: breaking bread with one another. There are some 80 to a hundred regulars who come in for the Wednesday dinner. They sit before wide round tables at the dining area, some with children in tow, others with cartloads of personal belongings. Many of them bring extra bags to put in the additional food packs (and fruits and cookies) given away after the meal.
“Volunteering here has made me more aware of what I don’t have and thankful for what I have,” says Laureen Lapid, one of the 17-year-olds from Inderkum High School in Natomas, Sacramento, volunteering at the community kitchen as part of their seniors’ project. They help set up plates and utensils, hand out the food, and clean the premises afterward.
Pitoy-Ngatia recalls a decent-looking family approaching her during one dinner to ask if they could have another plate. She discreetly gave them an extra turkey in a bag. They kept on coming back for three months. Later, the man in that family came back, now wearing an emergency vest. He told Pitoy-Ngatia the kitchen was a lifesaver during his unemployment. He now had a job and handed a donation of $70.
Doing the right thing
Moments like these make Pitoy-Ngatia feel that she is doing the right thing. Doing God’s work.
Delfin’s epiphany resonates with Pitoy-Ngatia with full force. The second child in a brood of 13 from Tagbilaran, Bohol, she has had all sorts of ailments, including stage 3B breast cancer, myasthenia gravis, and thymoma. Recently, the doctors found a lump in her other breast and got her started on IVIG treatment, in which a port in her chest provides intravenous immunoglobulin.
Sometimes, she slips out of the community kitchen for radiation treatment and comes back to continue kitchen work without anyone knowing where she’d been. She says, “Adik ako sa trabaho (I’m a workaholic). I have a reason to just stay in bed because I’m not well, but I don’t give in to excuses: I have to do what has to be done.”
At day’s end, she closes up the kitchen and steps out into the parking lot. Her sister, Tess Pitoy-Berry, herself a sought-after chef, is waiting for her. They say they got started with food offering back in the Philippines, preparing home-cooked meals for prisoners in jail as well as for children in orphanages.
“The children would look at you with pain in their eyes, and hold on to your hands as you leave,” says Pitoy-Ngatia before heading home to her husband, Murage, an environmental scientist.
“The people we serve say they are lucky to have us, but I’m blessed to be able to serve them.”
