Passing on a blessing...
Wow... this past Friday was incredible! It was the first Friday of Lent, which in the fish fry business, is like Christmas shopping season for retail stores. Everyone in Louisville it seems, whether you are Catholic or not, gets fish on Fridays, especially during lent. We were excited for this season kick off and invited a longtime friend of Love City who is also a musician to come play live music. We stayed open a little later and enjoyed the music and the neighbors coming together to eat and have fun. Unlike most church fish fry’s we are open for lunch and dinner and the lunch crowd on Friday was about the size of crowd we normally get all day, so we knew it was going to be a big day.
The musicians arrived around 5pm to set up and started playing around 6pm. I had just sat down with Shawn and some neighbors to enjoy a fish dinner when James, our board chair came over to tell me we only had 12 pieces of fish left. We were still open for another hour and a half, but it wasn’t enough time to pick up fish from our usual vendor on the other side of town. By the time we got out there and got back, it would take an hour and we’d be close to finishing up for the night. Shawn suggested we go over to Good Shepherd in the neighborhood to see if they had any fish we could have. Shawn and I jumped in the car and drove the 5 blocks over to Good Shepherd. It was packed. The lot was full, and people were lined up almost to the street. Shawn popped in the back door to check with the guys in the kitchen to see if they could help. He came back to the car shaking his head, “they don’t have any extra,” he said as he got back in the car. “There must be 200 people in there, they were slammed.”
We drove back to Love City in silence. I was worried, we had promoted the fish fry, we were expecting a good-sized crowd for dinner and now we were about to run out of fish. We got back to Love City and shared the news with the kitchen. We were down to 9 pieces of fish, and there was still a line. As we were walking back into Porkland I saw Dave and Sue arrive. They came around 6pm every Friday and got fish, my heart hurt that they might be too late, and we would be out. With nothing more to do that apologize once we ran out of fish, we sat back down to listen to the music.
About 5 minutes later, Matthew Brinson, the uncle of one of our students at Mighty Oak Academy and one of the workers in the kitchen at Good Shepherd came strolling through the front door still wearing his Good Shepherd apron, with a box of 25 fish on his shoulder. He handed it to Shawn and said, they found it in the back and weren’t going to need it, they counted, and they had plenty. Shawn brought the box back to the kitchen and our team quickly started breading fish to meet all our orders.
That box helped us make it to closing. We sold the last piece of fish right as the clock struck 7:30pm. As Shawn and I headed home, we started to drive past Good Shepherd. “Pull in and let’s go say hi,” he said. I pulled into the parking lot, and we headed over to the parish hall. Inside the crowd had left, there were a few people scattered at various tables. We ran into Rick and Cheryl Thomas, long time members at Good Shepherd. Over the years there were many times where Rick had called to see if we had extra fish, which we would send over for their fish fry. I asked Cheryl how the evening went, and she said they were so packed, they had a line out the door around 5pm and were just about to run out of fish. But standing in line to get a fish dinner was the owner of Schuckman’s Fish Company located in the neighborhood on 30th and Main St. Rick went out to let him know about the situation and he without hesitation left the line, drove over to his warehouse, and picked up 50 pounds of fish and brought them back to Good Shepherd. It was this fish that Matthew Brinson brought over to Love City Friday evening.
Friday night was a great picture of community coming together, from Good Shepherd, to Shuckman’s Fish Company to Love City and Mighty Oak Academy, that’s what kingdom looks like.
1,000 at $25 a month ...
Kick off video of the campaign to get 1,000 neighbors to give $25 a month in support of Mighty Oak Academy
Starting today and going until Easter we are seeking 1,000 of our neighbors near and far to join with us in support of Mighty Oak Academy!
This year at Mighty Oak Academy we have close to 80 students. It costs $13,500 a year for each student to attend the school. Our long term goal is to increase our sustainability activities to help offset some of that cost, such as the fish fry, St C's Tees and a new pre-school which will operate as both a preschool and a daycare. While we work to build these sustainability efforts we are seeking neighbors to come along side the school to help support students attending.
1,000 neighbors giving $25 a month will help cover the costs for more than 20 of our students. Please consider joining this effort by clicking the button below to donate today!
Lent starts this week...
We will have live music again this Friday! Come join us for lunch or dinner, live music starts at 5:30pm! This week we are welcoming Joel Gerdis to the fish fry for live music!
2519 St Cecilia St
11:00 - 7:30pm
We've started a new semester at Mighty Oak Academy and can always use supplies. If you are interested in helping, please click the link below to either donate, or click here to see our Amazon list for specific supplies that are needed.
If you are interested in volunteering or to find out more information about supplies needed please email: info@lovecityinc.org or call (502) 272-078.