Print edition: 
What began as polite resistance to the idea of opening a satellite Lord’s Diner in central-northeast Wichita had turned defiant in recent days. So it seemed inevitable, if regrettable, when the Lord’s Diner dropped its proposal Saturday and asked Mayor Carl Brewer to pull the item from Tuesday’s City Council agenda.
Some feared that turning the city-owned former Boys & Girls Club building at 21st and Grove into a soup kitchen would invite crime and hamper revitalization. Especially after the Wichita Ministerial League declared its opposition to the idea last week, it was hard to see how the City Council could proceed with the lease deal without appearing to set aside the will of the neighborhood.
The large and ongoing public investment of dollars in the East 21st Street corridor has made this more than a garden-variety “not in my backyard” dispute. But so has the special nature of the nonprofit organization behind the idea: The Lord’s Diner has made itself at home in the heart of the city, at Broadway and Central, for nearly eight years, feeding several hundred people a night in a way that respects their dignity and bolsters the community. In this case, the Lord’s Diner just sought to build on its selfless success by helping more people. As executive director Wendy Glick has put it: “We felt like God wanted us to do more.”
The charity’s decision against pursuing a central-northeast satellite allows it to consider expanding to other pockets of hunger in the community identified by its research, such as Planeview (though a diner patron predicted recently to The Eagle: “They’re going to complain no matter where you put it”).
Meanwhile, the neighbors of the proposed 21st and Grove site can take pride in their willingness to pull together to defend and promote the economic betterment of their area.
But the diner’s decision still leaves the central-northeast neighborhood with a hunger problem.
As Peter Meitzner, president of the diner’s board, told the City Council last month, more than 4,000 of the 11,000 children within walking distance of 21st and Grove live in poverty. Those children represented some of the mouths that the Lord’s Diner had hoped to feed.
City and neighborhood leaders should continue to try to work through churches and perhaps other partners to find ways to feed the hungry without undermining the central-northeast area’s economic progress. The debate generated worthy ideas, such as expanding area churches’ work serving meals to the needy.
One regret is that the old Boys & Girls Club site will remain empty and unproductive for now. The Lord’s Diner proposal called for it to work with other agencies to “provide financial counseling, job placement services, utility assistance and other services to improve the economic well-being and life skills of the area residents” — all needed resources for a neighborhood hit hard by the recession.
Still, the community can benefit from this debate over how to better feed its hungry where they live. And it will, if the end of the Lord’s Diner proposal does not end efforts to counter hunger in central-northeast Wichita and citywide.
— For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman
