About two years ago, Tom Grashel of Portsmouth and James (Jimmy) Armstrong of West Portsmouth had a plan for feeding the area’s homeless. Both are members of Bikers for Christ and started the ministry, The Father’s Table, a charitable organization to feed the homeless, at the Salvation Army in Portsmouth.

Now, about a year and a half later, Grashel said, “We have some numbers that are amazing.”

When the ministry first started in April 2008, 22 people came that first day, and a total of 129 meals were served that first month.

In 2008, Grashel said, the ministry served 7,249 meals, and this year, from January through October, the ministry has prepared 12,969 meals.

“That’s how bad the economy is in this area,” Armstrong said. “We’ve almost quadrupled the people that come and eat here and that reflects that there’s something going on. They just can’t afford to buy food so they come to this facility — to the Father’s Table Ministry.”

Capt. John Dove of the Salvation Army praised the ministry. “This is what we had envisioned,” he said.

Sara Maier of Portsmouth, and her granddaughter, Hannah Maier, 9, have been coming for over a year.

“We’ve had some great meals and the fellowship is great,” Sara said. “The community is supporting us and everybody seems to like what’s going on.”

She said she has been coming since the beginning, and now there is music and devotions. “It’s a great place to be,” she said.

Tony Booker of Portsmouth said the ministry has done a good job for him and lots of other people.

“They come through for me,” he said. “They help me a lot, because I get short during the month and a lot of times I don’t know where my next meal is coming from.”

Tom said entire families come to the facility.

“We’re not always real busy at the first of the month, but when they run out of commodities or money, they come here. We sometimes have mothers and fathers and three or four kids,” Grashel said. “If we don’t serve everything, we give it to them to take home. We’re blessed that we’re able to do this.”

Armstrong said, “Everything we get is from private donations. There are people that want to give us money. We have some that come in here in wheelchairs and they’ll give us 55 cents — it breaks our hearts.

“We don’t want them to try to pay for their meal, but some of our patrons feel that they have to show their support and their love,” Armstrong said. “We have a lady who is in a wheelchair —she can’t afford anything but she’ll give a dollar, and I’ll say, ‘We don’t want your money,’ but she’s says ‘no, you’re helping me, I at least want to give back,’ and that’s what she does. It breaks my heart because I don’t want to take her money at all, but she wants to give it and it’s from the heart.”

Grashel said the ministry does not get donations from corporations or churches, however, some people at their church — Christ Community Church — donate regularly, giving them $100 a month to help, and they also volunteer to serve meals.

Recently a group from Washington-Nile Middle School, 12 and 13 year olds, came in and worked.

“That’s something we want to do is get young people involved in this. It’s a great experience for them,” Armstrong said. “Our main thing is that we don’t have a lot of sponsors and we pay a lot out of pocket.”

“We’re asking the community to help pay to feed these hundreds of people,” Grashel said. “We feed them, but Tom and I can’t do it like we’ve been doing it.”

Armstrong said, “For me it’s emotional. We love what we’re doing, but we want to be able to afford to feed them good meals. Some of these meals are the only things that these guys and gals that live on the street get, so we try to give them good meals.”

All the meals are cooked from scratch, and among the volunteers are Armstrong’s wife, Jan, and Grashel’s wife, Becky, who do everything the men do.

Grashel said after people eat, they always come and compliment them on how much they appreciate the food and how good it is.

“We just don’t want anyone to go home at night with an empty stomach,” Grashel said.

“It’s a community thing,” Armstrong said. “We want to feed whoever’s hungry — let me correct that — God wants to feed them. It’s about The Father’s Table and how he’s provided for us and allowed us to do this.”

DEBORAH DANIELS can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 234 or e-mail features@portsmouth-dailytimes.com