In reference to Robert Gehrke’s article on the front page of the Utah section in The Salt Lake Tribune, Wednesday, Aug. 28, “End of Era for Good Samaritan House,” the Good Samaritan Program of the Cathedral of the Madeleine is relocating, not closing.
It is true that the Good Samaritan House will close its doors at the current location on Sept. 30. It is true that after 32 years of operation first out of the rectory front door and now out of its own front door the Good Samaritan will no longer be on the campus of the Cathedral of the Madeleine.
But the Good Samaritan Program is not being “absorbed” into the mission of Saint Vincent de Paul Dining Hall. The management team remains intact and the Good Samaritan Program will continue as an outreach mission of the Cathedral of the Madeleine. We are moving our facilities and operation to a larger space within the Saint Vincent de Paul dining room and Weigand Center of Catholic Community Services. Our program will operate independently, having its own lunch staging area with a lunch distribution window facing 200 South.
We will be able to take advantage of sharing a large, commercial food preparation area with Saint Vincent de Paul. Their kitchen and dining room operation has undergone a complete renovation which includes providing food for the three service centers for the homeless while continuing to provide a hot meal lunch and hot meal dinner. The sandwiches of the Good Samaritan program will fill in the gaps from 9 to 11 a.m. and from 1 to 4 p.m.
We expect our sack lunch program will also be asked to supply meals to shelters as needed and will continue to supply weekly lunches to Wasatch Community Gardens Green Team Farm. The program director, Darren Williams, volunteer coordinator, Kimmy Shore, myself and several volunteers toured the new home of the Good Samaritan program. We saw the behind the scenes place for sandwich making and preparing the sack lunches. We viewed the door out of which the sack lunches will be given. We dreamed a little wondering if it would be possible to take the Good Samaritan door with its service window with us to the new home.
The V. Rev. Martin Diaz, Pastor and Rector, Cathedral of the Madeleine, Salt Lake City
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