What began as a soup kitchen in a Baptist church has become a mammoth endeavor, and most of the people it serves are not homeless or unemployed
Volunteers distribute food at a drive-through as part of Boca Helping Hands’ Pantry Bag Program, which operates 9:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. daily except Sundays in east Boca Raton. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star BELOW: Friendship Baptist Church was where Boca Helping Hands began in 1998. Photo provided
By Ron Hayes
On a Tuesday morning in September, Audra Wolfman pulled her car up to a canopy tent outside the Boca Helping Hands headquarters on Northwest First Court in Boca Raton and popped the trunk.
A volunteer added a bag of food and a box of produce and Wolfman pulled away.
And then another car pulled up. And another. And another.
The procession had begun at 9:15 that morning. When the distribution ended at 12:30 that afternoon, about 200 people had left with bags of food and boxes of produce to supplement their pantries.
The bags held cans of pinto beans, protein bowls, sourdough bread, cream of chicken soup, tomato sauce, Powerade. The boxes held frozen meat or fish, perhaps frozen pizza or dairy products.
On Wednesday morning another line would form. And Thursday. And Friday.
Monday through Saturday, the cars line up so Boca Helping Hands can offer people like Wolfman a helping hand.
“I haven’t been here in seven or eight years,” said Wolfman, 60. “A long time. I don’t like to take advantage, but I’m not working at the moment, and I take care of my mom. She’s 80, so this is an opportunity to help with a little extra food. I’m very grateful.”
Last year, Boca Helping Hands distributed 115,790 of those bags and boxes.
Community members line up outside Boca Helping Hands’ main facility in east Boca Raton to receive free, nutritious lunches. The nonprofit’s Hot Meal Program is open 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and requires no identification or income verification from anyone seeking assistance. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Growing from a modest start
In November 1998, a small group of area churches and synagogues opened a soup kitchen, handing hot meals out the door at Friendship Baptist Church on Northeast Second Court.
That first day, they handed out 36 meals.
Last year, Boca Helping Hands distributed 3.5 million meals, divided among 40,000 people. This year it expects to offer 5.3 million meals. And that number doesn’t begin to celebrate all the programs and services the 28-year-old nonprofit provides at five area sites.
While volunteers with the Pantry Bag Program were loading cars, a line of men and women waited not far away for hot takeaway meals. Some were homeless, some were not; some had jobs, some didn’t. The meals were offered with no questions asked.
Every Friday, about 1,900 children in 15 schools and five summer camps go home with a KidsPack containing two meals, two cartons of milk, and two snacks to see them through the weekend when school meals aren’t available.
The Helping Hands Homebound Program delivered 8,477 meals to shut-ins last year.
This year, the Thanksgiving Box Brigade will provide about 4,000 families with turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce and yams, gravy and dehydrated potatoes.
Andrew Hagen became the executive director in May 2025. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Serving the working poor
When Andrew Hagen retired as the senior pastor after 20 years at Boca Raton’s Advent Lutheran Church, he asked himself, “What use would God want me to try next?”
In May 2025, after serving on its board for eight years, he became Boca Helping Hands’ executive director, overseeing a $5 million annual budget and more than $6 million of in-kind food donations.
What began as a soup kitchen in a Baptist church is now a mammoth endeavor, and most of the people it serves are not homeless or unemployed.
“As a group, our largest number is the working poor,” said Hagen, 64. “When we open the trunk to put in their boxes or bags, you’ll see plumbing supplies, lawn care equipment, maids’ mops. In Palm Beach County, you need to be making a minimum of $25 to $28 an hour to get by. These people are making $17 or $18 an hour.”
They are people like Helana Renesto, 44, who joined the Pantry Program line three months ago after immigrating from Brazil with her husband and three children, ages 18, 12 and 10.
“My husband is a businessman, so he can work online, but I don’t have a work permit, only a student permit, so this helps a lot.”
Renesto is learning English through the Milo International Language Center, and the Pantry’s bags and boxes compensate a bit until she can qualify for a job.
“The people are very helpful,” she said. “Everyone is always so gentle and kind. This is amazing for us.”
Developing workforce skills
Give a woman a fish and you feed her for a day.
Teach a woman how to do medical coding and billing and she can feed herself for a lifetime.
Gigi, 45, is a student in Helping Hands’ workforce development program, preparing for a job in the healthcare industry. Her husband works, and they have a son, 9. Her family has received Pantry bags and boxes for two years and she’s been in the workforce program a year.
“Helping Hands is paying for my books and online exams,” she said. “I’ve earned my certification, but I still need to pass the national coding exam.”
The program also offers what Hagen calls “wraparound” services, extra support while students develop their job skills.
“I took a one-week course before beginning the medical training,” Gigi adds. “It covered emotional intelligence, motivation, financial literacy, job interviews. And then after I graduate they’ll help with résumés.
“I’m going to take the national exam soon,” she said. “But I have to be ready. It’s one of the hardest exams.”
In addition to medical coding, the program offers training in eight other disciplines, including drafting, nursing assistants, an electrical apprenticeship, and obtaining a commercial driver’s license.
Last year, 99 men and women were enrolled in the program, and 54 found jobs.
Boca Helping Hands’ KidsPack program provides nutritious weekend packages to food-insecure schoolchildren and summer campers across Palm Beach County. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Volunteers
Helping Hands needs a lot of hands to help, and most of them are volunteers.
In addition to 25 paid staff, the agency is supported by about 300 unpaid volunteers. Add another 400 helpers with community service groups or students earning service hours and the number is closer to 700, Hagen says.
They’re in the main warehouse, packing those bags and boxes. They’re across the street, putting boxes of mac ’n’ cheese, granola bars and boxes of raisins into KidsPacks.
Erika Hawn began volunteering in 2012, when she was 12, packing produce boxes alongside her father. Today she is back as the agency’s volunteer program manager, organizing all those volunteers.
“It’s crazy,” she says as they bustle around her. “Everyone is from a different background. You can volunteer without an adult if you’re at least 16, so we have people from 12 up to 90. I’ve got one volunteer who’s new to the area and just turned 100.”
Last year, those volunteers donated 57,943 hours.
And then there are the corporate donors and supporters.
On Sept. 22, about 20 employees from area Publix stores were helping put boxes in trunks.
The KidsPack meals are delivered to those 15 schools by Amazon delivery drivers.
Publix, Aldi, Costco and BJ’s Club donate food, and Chick-Fil-A brings chicken nuggets and waffle fries.
The sheer number of hands it takes to do all Boca Helping Hands does is stunning, but nearly three decades after those first 36 hot meals were handed out at Friendship Baptist Church, the first mission remains.
Monday through Friday, homeless people can still walk up and receive a hot takeaway meal with no questions asked.
Helping Hands’ executive director, who has found what God wanted him to do next, understands.
“One day back in 1986, when I was a student at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, our assignment was to be homeless for a day,” Hagen recalls.
“I stayed in a shelter, and I had to sit through the worship service, and then I got a job selling The Chicago Tribune on the street. And I got scared.
“Believe me, if you’re not mentally ill when you become homeless, you will be. A hot meal becomes the brightest spot of their day.”
Last year, Boca Helping Hands handed out 64,326 hot meals.
For information on how to qualify for the Pantry food distribution program and other services, visit bocahelpinghands.org or call 561-417-0913.
You can give a Thanksgiving meal to a family
For 22 years, Boca Helping Hands’ Thanksgiving Box Brigade has provided thousands of area families with all they need to prepare a traditional holiday feast.
A turkey and all the fixin’s — stuffing and gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, yams and more.
Last year, the Box Brigade fed 4,200 families, and it expects to do the same again this Thanksgiving, on Nov. 26.
Donors can either give the $29.72 cost for a box or fill a box themselves from a detailed shopping list.
The deadline for ordering is Monday, Nov. 16, with boxes to be distributed at Helping Hands’ five locations on Saturday, Nov. 21.
For information on deadlines, pickup schedules, and how to donate, visit bocahelpinghands.org/thanksgiving.
— Ron Hayes
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