Brother Gary Wegner, executive director of Detroit’s Capuchin Soup Kitchen, has his own variation on Descartes: “I sometimes think…I meet, therefore I am!” He has plenty of meetings, but he makes time for the people the ministry serves. “I have a lot of meetings, which is fine, but I try to keep myself grounded. So several times a week, I try to have breakfast or lunch in the soup kitchen with the guests. Otherwise, it’s too easy for me to stay at 30,000 feet.”

For Brother Gary, sharing the table belongs to the work. “We provide meals; we don’t look at it as feeding people. Providing a meal is hospitality, and that’s at the heart of who we are – with everything we do, a hot meal is the heart.” At the Conner and Meldrum meal sites, meals are free and open to everyone. Families with young children are served at their tables, and guests can remain indoors between meals, especially in bad weather.

Brother Gary describes the pressures many guests face through an image as ordinary as the dining room furniture. “People live on somewhat of a three-legged table; they need shelter, transportation, and food. That’s where we come in – to provide food and to do it with dignity and hospitality.”

Raised Catholic in Wisconsin, he remains a Packers fan. His mother came from a family of teachers; his Lutheran father came from a family of pastors. “My father eventually converted soon after my mother stopped asking him about it!” he says. His father became active in parish life, including service on the parish council.

As a friar, he has served in Nicaragua, worked in parish ministry, and spent two decades at St. Lawrence Seminary High School. “Since I made my first profession, I’ve used the same statement, taken from an early biography of St. Francis, as my mission statement: ‘We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way.’”

The soup kitchen began in 1929 through the efforts of friars and lay Franciscans responding to people seeking food at St. Bonaventure Monastery. Blessed Solanus Casey urged the friars to provide soup and sandwiches. Brother Gary readily acknowledges that inheritance: “We’ve never done any of this by ourselves. Take a look at our history; Ted Williams helped us!”

From 1941 to 1974, the soup kitchen hosted fundraising dinners with the Detroit Tigers and visiting teams. Ted Williams was there for one of those dinners in the 1950s. “As the story goes, Ted Williams is heading through the kitchen to a poker game up the back stairs and notices the dishes being done by hand,” Brother Gary says. Williams asked early manager Ray McDonough what he needed. “Ray, of course, says a dishwasher… so Ted hands him a blank check. Ted was a little surprised when he saw the $10,000 canceled check, but Ray and Ted laughed about it every time they met thereafter.”

The soup kitchen has also bought a memento of those dinners on eBay: Norm Cash’s Silver Soup Bowl award. The award went to a Tigers player at the dinners, and the soup kitchen still presents it to groups or volunteers.

With the centennial approaching in 2029, Brother Gary feels the responsibility of carrying that work forward. “To me, we are standing on the shoulders of giants who came before us. I’ve learned over the years, as director, that with a great reputation comes great responsibility. I’m always aware that we have a really incredible reputation, and I never want to do anything that diminishes that. I hope to at least leave the soup kitchen with as good a reputation as I found, or enhanced.”

“As friars, we are unapologetically Catholic, but our volunteers and donors are not necessarily Catholic,” he says. He names Muslim and Jewish donors among those supporting the ministry. That welcome gives prospective friars a place to see the Capuchin vocation in practice: “What we do is very Franciscan.” For Brother Gary, it also comes back to taking a seat among the guests. “It’s important to me to dine with the guests, and quite honestly, it can be a lot of fun!”