5n2 aims to help those in need

The Word Is Life Deliverance (WILD) Church has opened a soup kitchen for those in need.
The kitchen, called 5n2 after the story of Christ feeding five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, opened about a month ago.
Church member Marti Baze said that she and Pastor Tony Wofford had been considering opening a soup kitchen and getting supplies together for about a month before opening.
Baze said that they had received donations from United Supermarket and Walmart Supercenter, as well as from the South Plains Food Bank in Lubbock.
“That one place from Lubbock, they really did us a solid,” Baze said. “They sent us a month’s worth of supplies. They gave us something for every Wednesday, and it’s good stuff. They really blessed us.”
Although most of the volunteers manning 5n2 are members of the church, Baze said that some volunteers weren’t, and all are welcome to serve or be served. Baze said that she and her partner in charge of 5n2, Melissa Ruiz, had both felt led to open a soup kitchen.
“I called her up,” Baze said, “and she said, ‘God’s been knocking on my heart telling me something, but I couldn’t tell what he was trying to tell me, so I told Him He was gonna have to send me a sign and then you called.’ Isn’t that awesome? You know, God works wonderful ways.”
Baze said that she and Ruiz had both been thinking about opening the soup kitchen.
Wofford said that the first week the kitchen was open, no one showed up to eat, but attendance has picked up in the past several weeks.
“The word is getting out, and we’re starting to feed a few more people,” Wofford said. 
The second week, they had two people, and then five the third week. The volunteers also delivered meals to those who could not make it to the church to eat.
“There is a need in Snyder for a hot meal,” Wofford said. “I know the (Scurry County) Senior Center does it. They target the seniors and some disabled people, but there’s a homeless population in Snyder that you don’t really hear much about. It’s one of those subjects that you don’t want to talk about.”
Wofford said that the 5n2 volunteers hope to assist people who do not have access to at least one hot meal a day, and he hoped that the idea would spread to other area churches.
“I’m hoping that we’ll get some of the other churches to follow, so that this can be a five-days-a-week event,” he said. “We’d do it one day, another church would do it another day, just so that we can get a hot meal into people’s stomachs.”
Right now, Wofford said, the volunteers are trying to figure out how best to meet people’s needs, whether it be delivering food or perhaps picking up people without transportation. 
Those in need will not need to qualify to be eligible to eat at 5n2.
“We’re just asking that the people that really need it come,” Baze said.
5n2 will continue to be open every Wednesday at the WILD Church from noon to 3 p.m.