Since Christmas the Roving Chef has had $1 in donations, and she feeds about 100 people three times a week.

"It's been nip and tuck," Charlie Johnson-Parker said about the situation.

Johnson-Parker converted a step van into a mobile soup kitchen she calls The Roving Chef. Three days a week she cooks in her truck and hands out meals to whomever needs or wants food.

Recently told to leave the Wal-Mart parking lot on Fridays, the Roving Chef serves meals in the Kmart parking lot from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. On Mondays she is stationed at Center and Detroit streets and on Wednesdays she can be found in the Big Lots parking lot.

She has a business license and the Health Department regularly inspects her truck.

Meals are traded for cash donations, food or meal tickets.

People in need of a meal are identified through various agencies, making it easier to get food. The meal tickets are available at the Warsaw Police Department, Salvation Army, Combined Community Services, Social Services of Kosciusko County, Our Father's House, St. Anne's Episcopal Church and Warsaw Wesleyan Church. Each ticket allows for eight Roving Chef meals.

The general public can get a meal for a cash or food donation. Every meal is different, she said, because she never knows what food she'll have to prepare. However, everyone gets the same meal of the day and the same portions, and all meals come with dessert and beverage. Deliveries are also available to shut-ins.

Having enough food isn't the problem, however. It's a lack of operating cash that troubles Johnson-Parker. She said she could use some hard cash. Insurance costs $280 per month and it costs about $40 to set up the van.

"I feel like I'm on a river in a boat with no oars," she said. But she won't quit. The meal wagon is her mission and her "calling."

A sign in her truck reads, "Hired by God, paid in full."

The Roving Chef will pick up donations. For more information, call 839-8503. [[In-content Ad]]