April 2022: Volunteer of the Month

John Braeunig and his wife, Mary, have both served for years in the Project Host Soup Kitchen.

John Braeunig started working at Project Host in 1992 when the Soup Kitchen was located at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. John would come in every Friday he could to wash dishes. Eventually, he joined First Baptist Church, a partner of Project Host with a standing volunteer engagement on fourth Sundays, and was quickly appointed as Day Captain for the group.

How did you hear about Project Host?

I was introduced to Project Host by Jody Fails. She and I were board members at Loaves and Fishes, and she was also the Executive Director of Project Host at the time. I started out at St. Andrew’s on Fridays, but when Project Host moved to South Academy, I continued to volunteer, but it wasn’t on a regular schedule. I would just find a spot on a crew and worked with a lot of nice people. Then I started to serve as the First Baptist Sunday Day Captain, and I’ve been doing that for almost 20 years. Every fourth Sunday we’re in the Soup Kitchen. I’ve got a couple of regular guys who come with me, and my wife, Mary, also started coming on a regular basis about 3-5 years ago.

What motivates you to spend your time at Project Host?

Service goes back four or five generations in my family, so volunteering my time was just something normal to me. At Project Host, I got to meet people who were like-minded and had the same motivations as me. I’ve stuck with Project Host for a number of reasons. Number one, I like cooking. Number two, we also volunteer weekly at Place of Hope. I know a lot of people who come to Project Host on a first-name basis, and I’ve known them for years, so it’s almost like serving lunch to your friends.

What is your relationship to our Soup Kitchen guests?

For a while, volunteering at Project Host was just service work, but about eight or nine years ago, Mary and I reevaluated our philanthropy and giving, both financial and the time we give. What we have found in our reevaluation is that we want to give young people who don’t necessarily have the advantages that our children had. Working with children is not my gift, but those are important avenues of our giving.

By the same token, there aren’t a lot of people who can go to the day shelter or United Ministries and make it a long-term commitment. I’m in recovery and have been for 30 plus years, and I have found that because of that, people can’t say a lot to shock me. In AA meetings, I’ve met all kinds of people from doctors to people who sleep under bridges, and I’ve realized we’re not all that different.

What’s your favorite part of volunteering?

The people. Working at Place of Hope and Project Host, Mary and I have been consistent, persistent, and insistent that the clients are our friends, and they matter. It’s really important to me to maintain those relationships. I don’t want anything from them. I just want to be their friend.

And I love meeting the volunteers, especially the ones that take it seriously—the ones who are there and feel empathy and compassion for the people sitting in the dining room.