81. 'Be A Little Too Kind' and Providing Homeless Individuals Hot Meals Each Week (with Founder, Jessica Lowe)

As a culinary student at a school in downtown Salt Lake City, Jessica Lowe realized that instead of throwing out the food they prepared each week, she and her classmates could share it with the homeless people they often saw on their way to and from class. And that’s exactly what she started to do and continued to do for several weeks. After the class was finished, Jessica realized she wanted to keep serving food and meals, and her nonprofit 'A Little Too Kind' was born.

Now each Thursday, she serves 130 hot meals, hands out 100-120 sack lunches, and also delivers other necessities to her ‘homies’ as she calls them. She prepares the hot meals herself, and invites others to help with the sack lunches and other items. 

I originally found Jessica on her Instagram account. The experiences she relates and her desire  to share the love of God with all those she meets is so inspiring. Listen to this episode to hear more of her story and how she uses her experiences to share goodness in many ways.

Links mentioned in the episode:
Be A Little Too Kind Website
Be A Little Too Kind Instagram
Be A Little Too Kind Facebook

Follow the podcast on social media:
Do Something More Instagram
Do Something More Facebook
Do Something More YouTube

Transcript

Melissa: As a culinary student at a school in downtown Salt Lake City, Jessica Lowe realized that instead of throwing out the food they prepared each week, she and her classmates could share it with the homeless people they often saw on their way to and from class.

That's exactly what she started to do and continued to do for several weeks. After the class was finished, Jessica realized she wanted to keep serving food and meals and her nonprofit A Little Too Kind was born.

Now each Thursday she serves 130 hot meals, hands out 100 to 120 sack lunches, and also delivers other necessities to her homies, as she calls them. She prepares the hot meals herself using those cooking skills she has and invites others to help with the sack lunches and other items.

I originally found Jessica on her Instagram account. The experiences she relates and her desire to share the love of God with all those she meets is so inspiring.

Listen to this episode to hear more of her story and how she uses her experiences to share goodness in many ways.

Welcome to the Do Something More podcast, a service oriented show where we highlight the helpers who inspire us all to do something more. I'm your host, Melissa Draper. Thank you so much for being here.

Welcome to another episode of the podcast and today we're featuring an organization called Be A Little Too Kind. They provide homeless individuals with high quality meals and other life sustaining support in the Salt Lake City community.

And they do this to not only improve their quality of life, but of course to restore dignity of those they serve by showing love and kindness. And today we're going to be talking with the founder and president of Be A Little Too Kind, Jessica Lowe.

I found her through her Instagram account where she shares some amazing stories and the faces of the homies, as she calls them, that she gets to serve and work with every week.

And she truly sees them as family. So Jessica, welcome to the podcast.

Jessica: Thank you so much for having me.

Melissa: I'm excited to learn more about your organization, but why don't you just start off with introducing yourself a little bit and then maybe getting into how you got started with Be A Little Too Kind.

Jessica: Okay, so like you said, I'm Jessica Lowe. I'm the founder and executive director of a nonprofit that serves the Salt Lake area called Be A Little Too Kind. Our mission is to provide high quality meals to those experiencing homelessness and like you said, as well as other essential life sustaining support.

So that's things like hygiene or coats or shoes or things that you, you need to to survive these hot summers and cold winters. Here In Utah. How I got started is interesting story.

I never wanted to run a nonprofit. That was never a dream of mine, But God had other plans. Back in 2021, I had this idea to go to culinary school or to find a culinary program.

I was interested in just learning more about cooking and baking. I didn't have a desire to. To open a bakery or work in a food industry in any way. So I kind of felt like it was a waste of time and.

And money, But I felt really strongly about doing it. And then while I was researching which program to go to, I found one in downtown Salt Lake. And I felt really strongly about it.

And so I started it. And it was really scary because I like to stay in my little bubble at home. And this was, like, my first big thing that I was doing after my kids had grown up a little bit.

And so entering that world was a little bit scary and intimidating, But I did feel so strongly about it. That's the crazy part, is just that the feeling that I had about going was just so intense that I had to do it.

So I started it, and within the first couple of days, I knew right away that we were going to be making and then throwing away a ton of food. So the area that my school is located in is an area that's highly saturated with homeless individuals, and I kind of had to park a few blocks away.

So every day, walking to and from school, I would pass homeless people. And knowing that we were throwing away so much food after class, I was wondering, why are we doing this when we could just be giving it to these people who would love it?

It's really great food.

So I started bringing containers from home to pack my leftovers in.

And then every day after class, I would just pass it out to whoever I saw as I went back to my truck.

And that was also scary.

But again, I felt so strongly about doing it. So that kind of grew from just my leftovers, from class to a friend's leftovers to. To almost the whole class's leftovers.

And then it became this thing that we loved to do after class, and we looked forward to doing it almost more than class itself. And so every day, we would just load up our leftovers, and we also started bringing other items that other people had donated who found out we were doing this, family members and things.

And we would just drive around and pass it all out to anybody who we saw. So it kind of just organically created itself after we did this every single day for 12 weeks straight.

And then once school was over we. I knew that I. I couldn't just stop. Like, this was something.

I had made friendships with these homies and gotten to know them. I saw them every day. And I realized that this was actually the reason that I had felt so strongly about not only going to a culinary program, but this one in particular.

And so I turned it into a nonprofit and other scary things.

And we decided to just focus our efforts, really, on food and make it a lot bigger and to visit the homies once a week. So we go every Thursday, and we provide a hot homemade meal to them, which is made by me each week, as well as a sack lunch that they can save for later.

And that the sack lunch has lots of components in it that are donated by different people every single week. So it's really amazing that the entire community has kind of come together to make this happen every Thursday.

It's awesome.

Melissa: Two things that stuck out to me from that story was one that you decided to continue doing it. I think a lot of us have had opportunities like the first you mentioned that naturally kind of happened, but then to say, this isn't something I want to stop doing.

I want to keep doing this. So that is so impressive to me. And to turn it into a nonprofit, and then second, that you provide them a hot meal. I think a lot of I've had experience making sack lunches and handing those out, but providing a hot meal just, I think, steps it up a notch, and we all deserve to have something like that.

Jessica: Yeah. I think that kind of adds a very personal touch to it, especially since that's, like, what got me started doing this in the first place was cooking.

So it's special to me because that's what I have to offer. And a lot of people will say, oh, can I. Can I sign up to make the hot meal?

And I'm kind of selfish, and I don't let people do that part because that's what I still want to provide as, like, my talent and my gift to them. But there's still a lot of other ways to serve.

Don't worry.

Right.

Melissa: I love that. That's beautiful.

Well, as you talked about that you do those meals on Thursday, and how many about are you serving now each week? How many of those meals do you end up handing out?

Jessica: We do about 130 hot meals each week, and we're still at about 100, 120 sack lunches. Wow.

Melissa: So walk us through that process. I know that creates specific things you have to do on each day. What does that look like? That Whole operation as you put that together.

Jessica: Well, depending also on what I have planned that week, because I'm still a mom, I still have two kids at home. But usually what happens is Tuesday is my shopping day.

I'll go and buy all the stuff for the hot meal. Wednesday, I cook all day. So whatever the meal is, I'll prepare it to a point where it's easy to just warm up on Thursday.

Or if it's something that needs to be like a. If it's like a casserole type thing that needs to be baked, I'll get it to the point right before it's baked.

And then also on Wednesday is when everybody who donates for the sack launch drops off their items. And then Wednesday is also when our. Our cookie deliver. We have a girl in our neighborhood who works for Crumbl and she.

She delivers their cookies that they. Their waste from the entire week. And so she'll drop those off that week. So we have everything set, and then on Thursday morning, whatever's left to cook or bake or whatever for the meal, we do on that morning.

And we assemble the lunch sacks and get everything ready so that we can take it to them for lunch on Thursday.

Melissa: That's great. That's a big operation. Well, as I looked at your Instagram, as I hear you talk about these experiences, I think, Jessica, along with cooking and making these meals, that you have a gift for forming this sense of community.

You've pulled other people in with your culinary school. You pulled all those students in with you to do that. You're pulling others in the community now to donate and to help, and then creating this sense of community with your homies, as you call them.

And I just. I think that's a great gift. Have you felt that yourself as you've gone about this process? Have you seen and experience that sense of community?

Jessica: Absolutely. Yeah. That's actually one of my favorite parts about doing this is. Is just seeing everybody from the community come together and bring to the table their time, their talents, or whatever they have to offer in any way and just come together with one heart and one mind.

We're all there to do the same thing for these homies. And I think that that's. It's missing in the world today is. Is people coming together with one heart and one mind.

So I. That's one of my favorite parts about this.

Melissa: Yeah, we definitely are all craving that sense of community. Well, we love to hear personal stories as well. So you have a great story you just shared with us, but do you have any others of some of the homies you've served or maybe individuals that have worked with you on this?

Be a little too kind. Are some of those experiences that you could share?

Jessica: So there's so many stories, there's so many things that happen every single week that I'm just blown away. Tender mercies that are 100% orchestrated by God. But one of my favorite ones to tell is in the very beginning, when we were still in school and running it, we started making sandwiches to supplement so that we had more food.

Because even with all of our leftovers, we still wanted to pass out more food. And those would go pretty fast. So we started making sandwiches and passing those out as well.

And back then, we used to drive around and find people. We weren't in one location. So one time when we were driving around to give out the food, I met one of the homies named Jay, and he was asking me if I ever have any peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

And at the time, we were only making meat and cheese. And so I was like, no, I haven't really thought about adding peanut butter and jelly because it just doesn't feel like a substantial meal.

I feel like meat and cheese is, like, arty. More protein. But he told me that he would love to have peanut butter and jelly because it reminded him so much of his mom and her making those for him.

And so it was kind of like this comfort connection.

I had never thought of it like that. And so I started adding peanut butter and jellies to the meat and cheese. So we have meat and cheese and peanut butter and jelly.

One day when we were loading up, I. I got this text from one of my friends. Her name is Brittany. And she wanted to give me something for the homie.

She said she had made something and she wanted to get it for me. And she asked if I was going down there that day. But we were in the middle of loading everything into my truck, and it was busy, and I knew that I was going to be there the next day, and so I kind of just ignored her text because I could grab it later.

She also lived in Riverton, and we were downtown, and I just thought, there's no way she's going to get here in time. So I ignored it and we went about our business, passing stuff out.

And she kept texting me, and I was like, what's the deal? Like, what is so important about getting this to me right now?

And we had stopped at a place to pass food out, and I looked down at my phone, and she Was like, I can meet you if you want to. Just tell me where you are.

And still thinking that she was in Riverton, I was just like, I'll just send her a pen and say, we'll be here for, like, the next five minutes and see if she wants to meet me there.

But I wasn't thinking that she would actually show up because I thought she was in Riverton and we were only going to be there for five minutes. So I didn't really pay much attention to it.

I jumped out. We started passing food out that homie Jay was there, the peanut butter and jelly J. So I went back to the truck to find some peanut butter and jellies, and I went through all the sandwiches, and we were completely out.

And back then, since we would drive around, we wouldn't always see the same homies every single week because we wouldn't know where they were. And so I hadn't seen him for a while, and it was a bummer that I didn't have peanut butter and jellies for him.

But while I was at my truck looking, this minivan pulled up behind me. It was a minivan full of kids and not made for off roading. And we were behind a building in this muddy area and jumps my friend Brittany.

And I was so caught off guard because I just really didn't think that she would show up after sitting near that pen. And she jumps out, and I could tell that she was, like, nervous.

And she hands me this bag, and she's like, I hope I'm not bothering you. I know I sent a whole bunch of texts, but I really just wanted to get this to you today.

And so I grabbed the bag from her, and I was like, you were so sweet to come out here with your kids and your minivan. And I look in the bag, and it's just full of peanut butter and jellies.

Like, probably 30 peanut butter and jellies. And I was like, you have no idea. Like, the timing on this for you to arrive here at the exact time that we were here with Jay.

So I walked her over there, she met Jay, we gave him a whole bunch of peanut butter jellies, and he was so happy. But the cool part about this story is that even if Jay didn't get peanut butter and jellies that day, it wasn't a catastrophe.

But the thing that stood out to me about that was it was a testament to me of how much our heavenly father knows each one of us and how he's always doing things and putting things in our path to let us know how much he loves us and how, how much he's thinking about us.

And it's up to us to remember or to look out for those things. And that day, it was peanut butter and jellies for Jay. And I just love that the whole entire thing was orchestrated so perfectly because there were so many things that could have gone wrong for Brittany not to show up in that small five minute period.

And she. And she did, even with everything that tried to stand in the way. Like, it was just awesome. And I love that story so much. I love telling that story.

Melissa: And so humbling too, to realize when we get the opportunity to be that. That message. Right. That your friend Brittany persisted because she felt inspired, I'm sure. And she got that beautiful opportunity to be that message of love from God through peanut butter sandwiches.

Jessica: Yeah. And she even said, like, I don't know why, I just woke up this morning and I felt like I wanted to do something for be a little too kind, but I didn't know really what to do.

And she was like, I just made peanut butter and jellies. And I. I felt like that was kind of dumb. And the fact that you weren't answering my text right away, I felt like that was dumb of me to keep bugging you.

But like she just kept persisting and listening to the spirit, like telling her to do this. So it was just. I just love that story. It makes me so happy.

I get emotional when I talk about it.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Well, I loved how you mentioned there, as you told that, that in the beginning you drove around so you didn't see as many of the same. But it sounds like now where you're going and doing these meals, you see many of the same people each week.

Is that right?

Jessica: Yeah, pretty much. Now we've partnered with Asian association and their drop in center in South Salt Lake. So they have a gated parking lot that they let us use. And it's been so great because the homies know exactly the day, exactly the time, every single week.

They can always find us there.

And we also have partnered with some other organizations that offer different services for the homies as well. So it's kind of like a one stop shop for them. And Asian association also offers a lot of awesome services.

So it's great for them to be able to just come and hit all those things that they need and provide.

Melissa: You the opportunity to form some of those relationships as you've talked about as well.

Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. And most of the time they don't just Grab their stuff and go. They'll stay for the whole time that we're there and just hang out with us, which I love, because I feel like that's the moment where we can really get to know them and make a connection with them.

Melissa: Make a connection and maybe have some of them make a connection with each other as well. So what have some of your challenges been? Because this is such an inspiring story.

How have you. What have some of those been, and how have you continued to navigate them as you've wanted to keep this going each week? This is quite, as I said, quite the operation.

What keeps you going and keep moving forward?

Jessica: It's funny about challenges because somebody asked me, what do your haters say? Like, what are they saying against you? I'm like, I don't really feel like I have haters. People have been awesome.

I really feel like the Red Sea has parted for being a little too kind because we just.

Melissa: It.

Jessica: Everything has just been so smooth. But I guess if I had to choose something that was a challenge, it would be in the very beginning. In order for us to get more volunteers to donate for the sack lunch and different things, I had to post about it on social media.

And in the beginning, when we were in school, I wasn't posting any of this on social media because it just felt. Felt like I didn't want to, like, glorify it or be, like, holier than or come across in any way that was perceived wrong.

I really was just keeping it to, like, myself, my family and friends and things like that.

But once I knew that I was going to turn it into a nonprofit, I had to post on social media and I had to do it regularly so that we could have a good volunteer amount of people, you know, providing services to keep us running.

So that was really hard for me, and it was still hard for me for a long time because I just didn't want people to look at it as any. Any way that I wasn't.

Meaning, you know, I wasn't. I was. My intention was good, and I didn't want it to come across as anything negative. But what really helped me with that was earlier this year, I went to a kindness summit and I met Darren Margolius.

He was one of the speakers there, and he's the executive director for beast philanthropy, like Mr. Beast, and he has his Beast philanthropies. So he's. He was in charge of that.

He was giving this great talk about social media and how important it is to use social media for good. And afterwards, it just stood out to me so much. So afterwards I, I pulled him aside and I just wanted to talk to him like, one on one about how this has been such a struggle for me.

And I wanted to find out more about, like, why he said what he said. And he, he actually pointed out how there's a scripture that talks about, you know, not letting your, your right hand know what your left hand is doing.

And so a lot of people perceive that as, don't tell anybody about what you're doing. Don't, don't share any of your good works. And I definitely think that there are those good works and services that don't need to be put on social media.

But he also pointed out the scripture about not hiding your light under a bushel. And that made me think about, like, letting your light so shine before men so that it will glorify your good works, you know, and, and let everybody see what, what God has you here for.

And so when he said that, it. I had never really thought of it that way. And I know that Jesus wants us to share our light with others. I think we're all given, either in some form or fashion, a talent or a gift or something special that we can give to other people.

And there's so much. Darren pointed out that there's so many things on social media that are just so negative and so dark.

And it's important for us to flood social media with good. And he said, you're. Your intention behind it is all that matters. And there's going to be people out there that judge you regardless if you're posting good stuff or if you're posting bad stuff.

But your intention behind it, it matters. And the only person that you should be trying to impress is God. And I just thought it was really awesome that he said that.

And, and being so spiritual myself, like, I was like, why haven't I think thought of this before? Why, why am I just now, like, clicking? From that point on, I felt like it's so right, like social media needs to be flooded with, with so much good and light, and, and as we do that, it encourages other people to share their light and to do the same thing.

So that was probably the hardest struggle that I've had so far, and that's how I overcame it.

Melissa: Yeah, and amen to all of that. Such a good message. And I've talked to many individuals in nonprofits or that serve that have had that same struggle of I don't want to, you know, be tooting my own horn or making it look like this Big, huge thing.

But as you said, it's so important. Number one, to get the help that you need, you got to let people know what you're doing to get that support. And some people, their gift is responding to what others have started.

Some people, that is their gift. And so we got to give them the opportunity to do that through communication.

But then, as you said, to share that light on social media. And I've. I've thought about that myself with this podcast and what I do, but that is one of the reasons I want to do it is I am very comfortable sharing other people's cool stuff.

So I love doing it. I love sharing about all the good things that. That so many are doing in the world. And it definitely needs to be shared to inspire others on how they can do good as well.

So. But I love that you shared that because it's a challenge I've heard many that are doing good struggle with. But that's a great way to navigate through it and good advice that you had to give.

And on that note, we also love to share in every episode because I have listeners from all over just general ways to serve in this unique way. So I would love to hear, Jessica, just any general advice you have to give for someone that's listening, that wants to serve the homies in their local city or wants to get involved maybe with helping the homeless population.

Do you have general advice that you would give in that area?

Jessica: Yeah. So I think my general advice for that would be to first of all, think about, like, what. What gifts you've been given and what you have to offer. If, if you feel like what you have to offer is food, then you can contribute in that way.

Or if it's. If it's monetarily, then contribute in that way. Look for an organization that touches your heart, that means something to you, and then use those gifts that you've been given to bless others.

You don't have to start your own nonprofit. You can find other nonprofits that are doing something that means a lot to you. And everybody has something to give in their own way.

And no act of service is. Is. Is too small. This be a little too kind started with me trusting my gut, using my talents, and doing a small act of service of just passing out two containers of food to two homies that I saw.

And it's grown from there, so the domino effect is innumerable. Like, you will it. It's going to grow. If it's something good like it, the light that it will generate will.

Will become so contagious and there will be a domino effect. So just do what you can do and trust that God has a plan for it. And then as far as be a little too kind.

Specifically, we have so many ways that you can contribute the lunch items. Like I said before, on our website, be a little too kind.org we have a link for the sign up for the lunches.

You can choose to provide all of the items for the lunch or one of the items for the lunch. Just whatever, whatever you're capable of giving. And then we also have other ways.

We have a lot of larger groups that will come together and sometimes they'll make hygiene kits or snack packs. Snack packs are just basically a hygiene kit, but only for food.

So some of our homies need extra food during the week and they use the food that we give them for the entire week. And those homies, I know we, we usually give them extra snack packs so that they do have more food.

And it's just full of a whole bunch of things that don't have to be cooked and can just be eaten anywhere, anytime, any, any temperature.

So those are good to have. And something I like to do with snack packs is we always keep them in our cars. So even if it's not Thursday and I see a homie somewhere, if I'm downtown or wherever, I always have a snack pack where I can just pass it out and, and make sure someone is taken care of.

And I think that's something that anybody can do. You can put together snack packs and keep them in your car and anytime you see somebody in need, you can give them one of those.

So those are, I think those are most of the ways that you can contribute. We also have like events throughout the year. We don't usually invite people to come pass out the food every Thursday just for the sake of the privacy of our homies.

And we don't want them to feel exploited. And there's new people every, every week that they have to get used to. But for our events, our Christmas and Thanksgiving and fourth of July events, we always invite anybody who contributes to that to come and help us.

So that's another way that people can get involved with, with be a little too kind.

Melissa: Yeah, lots of great ways. I love that you have that sign up on your website. Makes it pretty easy for those that want to donate in that way. And where can people find you if they want to learn more or follow your activities each week?

Jessica: Yeah, so our website is Be a little too kind.org and we have an Instagram at Be a little too kind. We're also on Facebook. Be a little too kind. Every Thursday, we post about our our day, that that week, and any fun stories that we have to share.

We always talk about who donated that week and how grateful we are for their support.

So that's where you can always find the faces of our homies and what we're doing.

Melissa: Yeah, I think that is another great service that you do. And I've really felt that following you on Instagram is the humanity that you add to these individuals. And that's a good reminder for all of us and that that helps us all show that love and kindness that we need to show.

Jessica: Yes. Flood social media with good.

Melissa: That's right. Well, I will leave links to all of those in the show notes. And I just want to say, Jessica, thank you again for joining us on the podcast here today.

Jessica: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It was nice meeting you and talking to you about something that is so close to my heart.

Melissa: That was my interview with Jessica Lowe, the founder of Be a Little Too Kind.

And as I did that interview, I just kept thinking how she is such a genuine person. She's so sincere in this good work that she's doing to feed the homies again, as she calls them in Salt Lake City.

And I love how she kept it going from that first initial act of delivering those meals with her culinary class and then also have invited others to join and help in a very natural way.

And she's always sharing the different groups on her Instagram that have stepped up to help with the different meals or things that they're doing each week. And I love seeing the community that she's created.

She really has created a great sense of community with her nonprofit. And I love that. We got to talk a little bit there, how she shared her struggle initially of sharing the good she was doing on social media.

And as I mentioned there, I have talked to so many people that are doing good, that are serving, that have a nonprofit, that have the same struggle that you don't want to feel like you're flaunting or showing off or any of those things.

But it really is necessary for us to share the good that we're doing. And I appreciate that so many have shared that struggle and then shared, as she did, how they were able to overcome that, because we need these good things shared.

And also, as I said, many of us, our gift is to answer the call of others that are doing good. And I know that's something that I have done many times.

I haven't ever felt inspired to start a nonprofit like many of these good people I interview here on the podcast. But I have felt very inspired many times by their calls to action and I am so thankful that there are so many doing good and that they in addition are willing to share that good and to invite others to join with them.

So, so many good things on this episode. I will leave links to her website and her Instagram account. I highly recommend her Instagram account. It's a great thing to see in my feed and to see the good that she's doing so you can go and follow her in any of those places.

If you want to learn more about be a little too kind or join their cause or donate to what they're doing.

And I just want to give you a reminder that if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or a family member or a neighbor or anyone that can benefit from the things that we talked about today.

Or also if you want to show the podcast some love. We always love to get a review or follow wherever you listen to your podcasts. And as always this week, I hope that you can find a way to do something more to help lift, inspire or make a difference.