EXEMPLARY SOCIAL SERVICES
HOSTED BY SACRED PLACES
Breaking Bread at Broad Street Ministry
by Ann de Forest
In the boiler room in the back of an old urban church,
a barber with a graying goatee and a do-rag has set up a
small but serviceable “salon.” “I’ll make you look like a
prince and feel like a king,” the barber, Bruce, promises
as he drapes a towel around a customer’s neck. The tiny
space is alive with scents and sounds – the whirr of an
electric razor, the whoosh of running water, the lingering
aroma of aftershave – all accompanied by Bruce’s upbeat
conversation.
“Ain’t nobody touch my hair but him,” says a satisfied
customer, Charles, a Vietnam vet with a dapper
moustache who has lived on the street for years. He folds
a dollar and sticks it in a nearby tip jar. “Have a blessed
day,” says Bruce, already settling the next customer into
the chair. “And thank you very much for your tip.” At
Bruce’s salon, the haircuts are free. But Bruce knows that
the tip jar brings dignity to the transaction. “Being a man
myself, I know I feel much better when I’m paying for it.”
Dignity is what distinguishes the services that Broad
Street Ministry (BSM) offers each week to the homeless
in Center City Philadelphia through its Breaking Bread
program. Every Thursday, just before 11:00, men and
women of varying ages and ethnicities gather outside the
grand neo-Gothic building on South Broad Street, just
across from the Kimmel Center, many lugging backpacks
or shopping bags stuffed with their worldly possessions.
The red doors swing open and those gathered step
down into a spacious dining hall where tables are set
for a banquet, with bright tablecloths and flowerpots
as centerpieces. Unlike many other feeding programs,
“there’s no standing in line,” says Paul, a regular. The
more than 200 homeless and hungry men and women
who come to Breaking Bread every Thursday sit down
at the tables to eat family-style, their lunch served
by volunteers. “It’s a good lunch,” says Paul. “It beats
everything else in the city.” Adds his friend Bob, “And
the people are so open and welcoming.”
“Vibrant,” is how Angelo Sgro, Executive Director of the
Bethesda Project, which provides housing and support
services to the chronically homeless throughout the city,
describes BSM’s outreach programs. “I have the utmost
respect for Bill Golderer [BSM’s Founder and Convening
Minister] and what he’s trying to do. He gets an idea in
his head and he doesn’t mull it over for too long. He goes
9 • Sacred Places • www.sacredplaces.org • Spring 2010
Bruce, the resident barber and jack-of-all-trades at Broad
Street Ministry, takes care of a customer. Photo by Ashley
Collinson, courtesy of Broad Street Ministry.
ahead and does it. Every city has someone who makes
things happen. Bill is one of those people.”
In 2005, Bill saw the potential in the boarded-up
Chambers-Wylie Memorial Presbyterian Church, a
vast, vacant edifice that interrupted the resurgence
of South Broad Street in Philadelphia. Today, the
year-old Breaking Bread program is an outgrowth of
BSM’s inclusive liturgy that draws young city dwellers,
suburbanites and homeless neighbors together for
worship every Sunday night. As program director Wendy
Gaynor says, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re
here on Broad Street. This location confers a lot of
responsibility, and this building has a lot of issues, but
we love it and are grateful to work from here.”
In the same spirit of hospitality and creativity, Breaking
Bread has always been much more than a lunch program.
From the start, Wendy and her staff envisioned a true
ministry that “reaches out to those who are often
overlooked and aims to provide them with necessities
that are both tangible and relevant.” Those who come in
for a meal find ready access to a wide range of essential
services, from legal advice to mental health counseling to
assistance from the Benefits Bank, a program that helps
those in need “cut through red tape” and determine what
government benefits they are entitled to receiv K