Charles Udoh cracked an egg into a large bucket early Thursday morning at OurCalling, a day shelter for homeless people.
The food service manager originally had sloppy Joes on the menu for lunch. But OurCalling’s building on Cesar Chavez is on its third day without power following Tuesday’s storms.
The spoiled meat forced the chef to think creatively about how to feed 200 people lined up outside, hungry and ready to eat something tasty.
Udoh settled on fried egg sandwiches, swirling the pot of yolk above the gas-powered grill that’s still running.
Thursday’s improvisation won’t solve the nonprofit’s bigger problem of having to throw away thousands of pounds of refrigerated food if power isn’t restored soon. Some of it has already spoiled.
“We have to make a decision today of what we can save and what we’re going to have to toss,” Udoh said.
OurCalling pastor and CEO Wayne Walker says the power could be back on by Friday, according to Oncor.
Once it’s restored, Walker expects to find “significant damage” that could be costly for an organization that relies only on private funding.
He is asking people not to donate food at the facility while the power remains off but to send donations instead so the nonprofit can prioritize their most crucial needs.
In the meantime, Walker said they have moved their server to the cloud so their intake systems can still operate, allowing them to still assist homeless people even without power.
“I think everybody in Dallas is trying to figure out if they’re okay,” Walker said. “And if they are, secondarily, they’re trying to figure out ‘Are my neighbors okay,’ and ‘How can I help my neighbors? So we’re just doing the same thing everybody else is doing.”
Sarah Kahn, president and CEO of Housing Forward, said Family Gateway was the only night shelter in their homeless response system impacted by power outages.
The nonprofit’s new shelter in North Dallas regained power about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, ending the two days and nights of darkness for the 200 people living there, said president and CEO Ellen Magnis.
“Families were understandably agitated and bored,” Magnis said. “The 3-11 p.m. shift seemed to have the most difficulty trying to help manage and soothe the emotions of distressed families in the dark; they were creative and made it work.”
Tuesday’s storm
Ronald Clemons, 55, waited outside OurCalling for breakfast and recalled the otherworldly experience of Tuesday’s high winds and flying debris.
Clemons sheltered inside his white SUV in the Fair Park area during most of the storm, watching as trees snapped, trash cans lifted off the ground and a limb cracked his car window.
“It was unbelievable,” Clemons said. “I just got on my knees and started praying. I was thinking God was on his way back.”
The building loses power dozens of times a year following severe weather events, but normally not for this long, said Rainer Bantau, the nonprofit’s senior operations manager.
The largely underserved area of South Dallas often suffers from delays in getting power restored, he said. Still, the nonprofit’s core mission to build relationships with people hasn’t been interrupted, for which Bantau said he’s thankful.
Love doesn’t run on electricity, Bantau added.
While lunch was cooking, the OurCalling crew served breakfast of donated donuts and coffee, brewed by fellow nonprofit Austin Street Shelter. But not before outreach worker John Little, 55, led their team in prayer.
“There’s so much destruction, Lord,” he prayed. “But this is just a bump in the road.”
