Dining out for Monday meals
Karen and Cliff Parker invite Elon
students into their house for weekly dinners
Tess McMains / Reporter
It is 6 p.m. and the gravel driveway that leads to the
Parker's house is a traffic jam that can rival any
interstate construction hold up.
The driveway is just a preview of the chaos that waits
inside the house.
The living room is filled with Elon University students
talking animatedly to each other and taking furtive glances
at the feast that sits in the kitchen.
Food is laid out buffet-style on the countertop. Grilled
cheese sandwiches, potato soup and homemade chili take up
most of the available real estate.
Karen Parker stands in the middle; making sure all of the
food is in order before unleashing her students on it.
She adds one more grilled cheese to the towering stack and
tosses the pan into the sink.
There will be time for cleaning later.
She makes her way out of the kitchen and into the living
room.
Clearing her throat, she says in her husky southern voice,
"Now let's bow our heads."
Welcome to a typical Monday night with the Parkers. Here in
Karen and Cliff Parker's modest two-story home, thirty
Elon students have converged with the Parker family to
participate in a classic American family dinner worthy of a
Rockwell painting.
None of the guests are related to the Parkers. In
fact, the longest any of the students have known the family
is just short of two and a half years.
But here they stand, holding hands for grace, in the sort of
intimacy usually reserved for families.
Parker came up with the idea of hosting dinners for Elon
students when she saw a group of them one Sunday at a church
service for Life Fellowship.
She felt they needed additional attention.
"We love our Elon kids at Life and I felt like we
needed to let them know how much we see them," Parker
said. "With these dinners I want to prove they are
not invisible."
"It was my desire to give them a place away from Elon
where I could just talk to them and feed them," Parker
said. "I wanted to give them a safe place."
A haven in the midst of college life is what keeps junior
Claire Chironi coming back every week. Chironi had
heard from a friend about the Parkers and had decided to go
along one Monday evening.
"I would be lying if I said I didn't go back
partially for the food,"
Chironi said, laughing. "The Parkers are such good
people and make you feel at home. You know they really care
about you coming. It's like we are their kids."
It may seem unusual to make a tradition out of cooking for
thirty college students every week. However, Parker thrives
on it. She is always looking for an opportunity to help
them out.
"It's funny because growing up I remember thinking
early on that I didn't want to be average," Parker
said. "I wanted to do something extraordinary in my
life."
"Then one day at work I was doing a devotional on the
Virgin Mary and how ordinary she was but the extraordinary
things she did. That's when it occurred to me that God
uses the ordinary."
On this particular Monday, something extraordinary is coming
to an end. All that remains of the grilled cheese
platter are bread crumbs and dollops of cheddar.
The conversations have died down to quieter murmurs.
It's an hour since the students have arrived, and now it
is time for them to make their way back to campus.
Parker makes sure she hugs each student goodbye before they
leave her home. But the departures are only temporary, they
will all be back next week for more food and fellowship with
both new and old friends andfellow classmates.
It's something new and different that the students can
enjoy together.
It's time away from campus and the campus food in Acorn
Coffee Shop, Harden Dining Hall, Upstairs and Downstairs
McEwen and Octagon.
Contact Tess McMains at pendulum@elon.edu or
278-7247.
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Tess McMains / Photographer
Tess McMains / Photographer