On Wednesday morning, Barbara Gavin and her service dog, a black-and-white pit bull named Angel, visited First Presbyterian Church of Medford.

In a courtyard, beneath the bell tower, a pair of church volunteers gave her two sack lunches, each containing apple sauce, crackers with peanut butter, a pudding, chocolate Harry & David truffles, a plastic spoon, bottled water and a sandwich (Gavin chose peanut-butter-and-jelly for herself, meat-and-cheese for a friend).

Gavin, 66, ate her meal a short distance away in the lobby of the Rogue Valley Family YMCA. She lives on the streets in that part of town. As always, she gave Angel the peanut-butter crackers.

Gavin had left with two of the 102 lunches given that day at the Brown Bag Café, where people can grab an assembled meal from 9 a.m. to noon Monday through Thursday. The church plans to open the café on Labor Day.

“They’ve been very helpful,” said Gavin, a former Harry & David machine operator who said she’s been homeless since 2021.

What began in 2011 as a modest church youth group project — just having some lunches on hand in case someone stopped by — became part of the church’s mission a few years later. By then, many people had come to count on the food.

“We were going, ‘Boy, we need to deal with this,’” said Terri Johnson, a member of First Presbyterian’s mission team.

In the beginning, the church handed out 20 to 35 lunches a month, said Sandi Frey, the Brown Bag Café manager. Now they often hand out between 250 and 400 a week.

“It just exploded, basically,” Frey said.

Located across the street from Alba Park, the church is near treatment providers, human service agencies and nonprofits, as well as the courts. The area is a hub for homeless individuals.

“We just happened to be kind of right in the middle of a population of folks that are in great need,” Johnson said.

More guests tend to show up near the end of the month, when their food stamps and government assistance have run low, Johnson said.

Though some out-of-towners turn up at the café, the church primarily sees locals and regulars. Most — like Gavin — are houseless, but Johnson reckons that about a quarter of the guests have homes.

“They just can’t make it, you know? And any kind of food helps,” Johnson said.

The church collects sandwiches and other supplies throughout the week from Ascension Lutheran Church, United Church of Christ and United Methodist Church. First Presbyterian’s volunteers pack the bags after Sunday service and add the sandwiches — kept cool in the church kitchen — on café mornings.

Sometimes someone from the churches adds something special.

“They really love it when we have homemade cookies and homemade banana bread,” Johnson said. “It’s kind of a special treat for them.”

When the church collects other items — donated shoes and clothing, toothbrushes and hotel hygiene products — volunteers hand them out at the cafés, as well. They give socks year-round and, in winter, gloves and wool blankets. Some church ladies knit hats for the guests.

The operating budget for Brown Bag Café is about $28,000 a year. First Presbyterian recently received a $15,000 grant from the Cow Creek Umpqua Indian Foundation, which earlier this summer announced grants awarded to 85 regional nonprofits.

The church plans to braid together additional grants and donations to cover the remaining $13,000.

“God tells us to feed the hungry, and we are surrounded by hungry people,” Johnson said. “And without our service, they would be hungrier.”