More Than a Meal

Summer Break Café nourishes Columbia children — and volunteers

by

Local Church

South Carolina Advocate | July 21, 2026

COLUMBIA—On a sunny June Tuesday morning, the fellowship hall at Francis Burns United Methodist Church is bustling with activity. Teens and adults work at various tables peppering the room—some packaging tiny cartons of milk, others putting food in plastic bags and still others gathering the bags in cardboard boxes for transport. 

In the back, a kitchen crew ladles out a meal into individual Styrofoam containers.

Everywhere there is laughter, chit-chat, excitement, camaraderie.

And it’s all in the name of Jesus.

This is the Summer Feeding Program at Francis Burns, a thriving operation that is in its 19th year of operation at the thriving Midlands church in the Bendale community. Called “Summer Break Café,” the program is funded by the United States Department of Agriculture with the South Carolina Department of Education as its administrative body. It provides meals to local students who are 18 years old and younger through 32 sites in the Columbia area, including two rural non-congregate sites, two African Methodist Episcopal churches and more. 

“We provide the meals,” explains director Nancy Bradshaw Davis, smiling as she shows off the lively operation, pointing out the stations while greeting the workers.

Sometimes families come to the church to pick up the meals, she said, while others are delivered to locations in the area. Seven meals go to each child, five days a week, all summer long. 

Young people are an active part of the behind-the-scenes help, working in tandem with adults to make the program a success. They say they love working to help their neighbors. 

“I think it’s a good opportunity,” said Aaliyah Davis, 18, a member of Francis Burns UMC, as she works to assemble a cardboard box with food. “You never know what somebody’s going through, so to give back is a great service.” 

Her coworker and friend Makenzie McCorkle said working at Summer Break Café is her first job, and she really enjoys the program. 

“It’s a great opportunity to meet other people and a great way to help others,” she said.

Reginald Mack, a rising 11th grader who is a member of Francis Burns, said he appreciates the way his congregation is involved in the ministry.

“It think it’s very important for us as a church to help,” he said. “These are people we see on a daily basis, and we don’t necessarily know their situation.”

By summer’s end, thousands of meals will have made their way from the fellowship hall to children across the Midlands—each one packed with care by hands young and old. And when school lets out next year, the volunteers at Francis Burns will be ready to do it all over again. 

After all, as Jesus said in Mark 6:37,  “You feed them.”

And at Francis Burns, feeding the community isn’t just a program. It’s who they are.

Jessica Brodie is editor of the South Carolina Advocate, the news journal of the South Carolina Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church.