A bright, crisp Saturday morning finds a dozen university students busy beneath a red tent along an alley on Patterson Avenue. A long stretch of barbed-wire fence marks the boundaries of a clothing company and separates Winston-Salem’s homeless from its grassy grounds.

Nearly 150 men, women and children line up to receive the neatly constructed ham or turkey sandwiches, Mountain Dew, Coca-cola and home-made chocolate chip cookies all purchased by the volunteers that stand wearing food prep gloves, waiting to serve.

“What these kids do is out of the goodness of their hearts. They don’t have to do this, but they do because this is what they want to do,” Ron, one of the Saturday regulars, said.  Ron has come almost every week for the last year and a half to visit the students involved in the Wake Saturdays program. A completely student-run organization, Wake Saturdays is dedicated not only to feeding those in need, but to establishing meaningful relationships with them as well.

Senior Katie Luedecke, one of five student leaders of the program, was initially drawn to the university because of the Pro Humanitate motto, but when she arrived she was disappointed by the emphasis on material support.

“Most organizations have little to do with human interaction. It is mostly about money, not about the human,” Luedecke said. “We like to think all these quantitative things somehow feed the human, but that’s not true. People need relationships.”

This philosophy was essential to the founding of Wake Saturdays and its continued refusal to become university sponsored. Founded in 2006 by three university students looking to break out of the university bubble, Wake Saturdays is entirely student funded and organized. The organization grew to its greatest size last year when 25 undergrads would regularly turn up on Saturdays to volunteer their time.

Ever more students would bake desserts or donate sandwich supplies without coming out to help. The Second Harvest Food Bank also donates the bread for sandwiches and some dessert options. This year, support has dwindled, which is a problem for the more than 100 citizens of Winston-Salem who have come to expect a decent lunch and friendly reception from the Wake Saturdays crew.

“This isn’t a volunteer experience. We want people who want to build relationships with people,” Luedecke said of the difficulties of boosting attendance. “We are trying to get people to come out, without selling out.”
For the volunteers’ part, it is the relationships with community members that keeps them coming back every Saturday. Though Wake Saturdays, is not officially a faith-based group, the leaders service is bound up in their Christian faith. “We encourage people who have no religion to come out as well,” Luedecke said. “We want to make people comfortable in whatever capacity they feel comfortable serving.”

The relationships formed through Wake Saturdays extend well beyond the sandwich lines. Group leaders frequently become involved in the lives of those they serve. Luedecke and some of the other leaders spent all night in a hospital waiting room once after one of their friends from the program was sent to the emergency room for a health issue. On another occasion, Luedecke celebrated a friend’s placement in a “really good narcotics recovery program” and then watched in disbelief as she dropped out of the program and returned to homelessness.

“People can go to a sandwich line anywhere,” Luedecke said. “But what keeps people coming down is the relationships with our members. Even after people are placed in nice homes, they still come down on Saturdays.”