Sophia’s Helping Hand feeds the community during its first Christmas Day event
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Sophia's Helping Hand served hot meals to those in need Wednesday afternoon during the nonprofit's first Christmas Day event.
Sophia's Helping Hands has been feeding and clothing unhoused people in Columbia since it was founded by Sophia Smith in 2008, with Smith hand-delivering hundreds of meals to unhoused people daily.
"If you want to help the community, you got to be in the community," Smith said. "You've got to be hands-on, hands and feet on ground to really know what is the need of the community."
With most businesses and nonprofits closed on major holidays like Christmas, Smith planned for Wednesday's event to fill the gap.
"This is the first year that we are doing Christmas dinner simply because we never noticed any other organizations throughout the years doing dinners on Christmas Day," Smith said.
Attendees at the event were served various homemade foods like turkey, collard greens and pulled pork. Guests were also encouraged to help themselves to free blankets and clothing that were provided by the Bluffs Retirement Center and second-hand store Upscale Resale. Moser's Foods, Advanced Vision Optometry and Oak Grove Church also donated food and water..
"We had a bunch of love coming together to make this happen," Smith said.
Smith added that any leftover food from the event would be served as a public buffet for the homeless.
According to Smith, her passion for helping others started long before founding Sophia's Helping Hand. Smith credits her grandmother as her inspiration of helping out members of her family.
"I started doing this not knowing that I was already a food pantry at the time by just helping and making sure that we had other families and friends that needed food and we provided," Smith said, "My household provided that for them."
Event attendee Amy Warner arrived at the dinner in her truck, having given a ride to two strangers she met earlier who told her about the meal. Warner said she does her best to help others because she knows what it’s like to be in their position. She was thankful for the meal.
"It means Christmas. It means hope. And it means community and love. And it's greatly appreciated."
Smith also owns Grandma's Southern Eats, a soul food shop and caterer, with her brick-and-mortar store on Big Bear Boulevard being a little more than a year old. Smith hopes with her physical storefront, she can host more events like Wednesday's dinner with a New Year's Day meal event in the works.
More information on how to support Smith can be found on her Facebook page.
