Missionary Men's BB Team Volunteers at Christian Aid Center

WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- While their semester break doesn't end until next Tuesday, the Whitman College men's basketball team has been back on campus for a few weeks, diving back into their Northwest Conference season.

But with no classes to attend, reading assignments to absorb or papers to write, coach Eric Bridgeland and his players took time earlier this week to volunteer at Walla Walla's Christian Aid Center (CAC), which provides two meals a day for those in need.

The CAC's Monika Dowing directs her kitchen staff.

Jason Wicklund, CAC executive director, welcomed the Missionaries into the kitchen on Monday.

There, they helped kitchen manger Moniker Dowing prepare and then serve the evening meal (taco salad).

"We were so humbled to be part of CAC for even a day," Bridgeland said.

"It's amazing what the human will can achieve if motivated. Monika and her staff figure out a way to serve two free meals a day, 365 days a year.

"The CAC is what life is all about. Everyone from our program walked away very thankful for the opportunities and experience that Whitman College has given them, individually and collectively."

The CAC, located at 202 Birch Street, is a non-profit faith-based ministry that serves Walla Walla's homeless and low-income population.

The dessert crew plunges ahead.

In addition to the thousands of meals it serves each year, it also provides family and men's services, resource referral, case management, chapel services and Bible studies.

The organization was founded in 1946 as the Union Gospel Mission in the old Kaufman building at the corner of Rose and Fourth streets, where it served as a soup kitchen and provided chapel services.

Men's shelter services were added in 1948 when it moved into a vacant hotel space, and the name was changed to the Walla Walla Rescue Mission in 1963.

The operation moved to its present location in 1971 and began providing emergency women's shelter. After four small units for women and small families were added in 1983, four additional nearby buildings were purchased (for expanding family services) in 1989, when the name was changed to Christian Aid Center.

The CAC expanded again in 2009 when three nearby houses were purchased for use as transitional family housing.

Many hands at work -- slicing and dicing for taco salad.

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CONTACT: Dave Holden
Sports Information Director
Whitman College, Walla Walla, Wash.
509 527-5902; holden@whitman.edu