Capuchin Mobile Ministries not only offers spiritual care and food to unhoused people in the Boston area, but it also aims to provide something that can be particularly hard to find for those experiencing homelessness: relationships.
Three times a week, a van with a mix of a Capuchin Franciscan friar or two, lay chaplains and volunteers, travels to seven sites. For about 20 minutes at each site, volunteers give out coffee and sandwiches while the friars and lay chaplains talk to the people who come up to the van. “It’s like a mobile coffee hour,” said Br. Paul Fesefeldt, founder and director of the ministry. The idea dates to 2019, when the Capuchin provincial asked Fesefeldt to start a food truck ministry. Fesefeldt, who previously served in other homeless ministries in Boston, spent six months talking to people. “The need was not a food truck,” he said. “There’s a lot of food in a big city. There are very few programs providing spiritual care to people on the street.” On a food truck, the person giving out the food stands high above the people receiving it. With Capuchin Mobile
