More than soup feeds the hungry

Man fires up grill for BUCM lunch crowd

Credit: Sharon McBrayer | The News Herald

Terry "Sparky" Simmons tends the chicken he cooked for Burke United Christian Ministries' soup kitchen to serve for lunch Monday. Simmons cooked 240 pounds of chicken over two days.

By: Sharon McBrayer | Morganton News Herald
Published: November 17, 2008

Morganton --

The smell of something good cooking was noticeable on Monday at Burke United Christian Ministries.
That smell was chicken on Terry "Sparky" Simmons' grill. He volunteered his time, cooking skills and money to feed the lunchtime crowd at the soup kitchen.
Simmons and his girlfriend, Jane Roberts, grilled 240 pounds of chicken outside the ministry between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday, starting up again at 5 a.m. Monday.
Simmons, who has been cooking since he was a boy, felt compelled to do something after he saw a report on the news about the empty food shelves at the ministry. He also had just bought himself a flat-screen TV as an early Christmas gift. After seeing the report, he thought about how fortunate he is and how he needed to do something to help.
"There's people out there who don't make what that TV cost in a month," Simmons said.
So he and Roberts bought the chicken from Case Farms, along with 140 pounds of charcoal, to feed people who are having a hard time making it. Officials at BUCM told him to expect 300 to 350 people for lunch.
"And that's what Terry wanted to do," Roberts said. "He wanted to help the community because there are a lot of people who don't have food."
Simmons added, "Honest, hard-working people who don't have food."
Simmons and Roberts know what it's like to fall on hard times. While Simmons' job as a technical supervisor for commercial nuclear power plants has been steady, Roberts was laid off from her job at Drexel Heritage. When that happened, folks in the community helped her out.
So the couple decided to pay something back.
"It's like I told her (Roberts), we can't do it all the time but we can do it one time," Simmons said.
Simmons, whose girlfriend bragged about his cooking, said if his job allows, he might help cook some of the turkeys for BUCM for Thanksgiving.