When Wendy Coats first moved to Gainesville, a woman on a bus warned her to avoid downtown and its homeless population.
Coats, 51, bit her lip. As she walked off the bus, she turned back to the woman.
"By the way, ma’am," she said, "I’m homeless."
During Grace Marketplace’s second annual Day of Grace on Saturday morning, Coats was able to walk into the homeless shelter’s new kitchen and eat her first fresh meal in a while.
During the event, which was designed to show the progress made over the past year, the shelter christened its new kitchen and provided a day of entertainment for the shelter’s guests. The idea of the marketplace being a one-stop location for the homeless is what sets it apart from other shelters in Alachua County, said Pegeen Hanrahan, a former mayor of Gainesville, who spoke during the ceremony.
"It’s really exciting to see this finally come to fruition," she said. "It’s been a long time coming."
After functioning as a prison, the shelter opened as the only facility of its kind. What was lacking, however, was a kitchen.
The shelter used to rely on outside donations to feed more than 80 residents and the 250 additional people who live across the street in a tented community known as Dignity Village.
But Saturday, the kitchen opened as a red ribbon was trimmed and a bottle of champagne was popped. A line quickly formed as the kitchen’s first meal, cooked by chef and co-owner Bert Gill of Blue Gill Quality Foods, was ready to go.
It’s been about a decade since the idea of the shelter first popped up in City Hall, Hanrahan said.
"We kind of borrowed the Wal-Mart model of social service," said Jon DeCarmine, the director of operations at Grace Marketplace. "The idea is whatever you need, you can come here."
The new kitchen, Café 131, was dedicated to Frances "Pat" Fitzpatrick, a regular at City Hall meetings. Fitzpatrick, who passed away last year, would walk around with pins on his shirts that read "Feed Everyone," Hanrahan said.
"He was kind of the voice for the forgotten down at City Hall," she said.
In the chilly weather, Coats walked along a path inside Grace Marketplace on Saturday with her 15-year-old pug named Maggie.
"I think it’s gonna be great," Coats said. "In cold weather, you want to eat more."
Contact Martin Vassolo at mvassolo@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @martindvassolo
Grace Marketplace volunteer Bert Gill, 46, cuts bread into smaller portions after removing it from one of the new ovens on Nov. 14, 2015. “It will be so much easier to feed so many more people,” he said.
Jon DeCarmine, Grace Marketplace's Director of Operations, welcomes visitors to the homeless shelter’s new kitchen for its inaugural lunch on Nov. 14, 2015. DeCarmine has overseen Grace Marketplace for almost two years and said he looks forward to continuing to serve Gainesville citizens experiencing homelessness.
