Jul. 24—GREENSBURG — The Bread of Life soup kitchen is looking for volunteer groups of four-member teams to make homemade egg noodles for their fundraisers.

If you've never stopped by the Bread of Life on Randall Street, you're missing a rare opportunity to meet folks who are all about community, friendship, service and fun!

From 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesdays, you can walk through the door of the BoL kitchen and hear laughter and see flour, dough and noodles flying across a table. That means "The Noodle Ladies" are hard at work.

Volunteer Arlene Gehl started making noodles last year and admits, "It's just a lot of fun."

Gehl, a retired homemaker and mother of four, has already graduated to Head Noodle Maker at the BoL. She loves to cook, and pitching in at the BoL kitchen with the other members of this group is a nice break in her week.

The other Noodle Ladies on this day were Peggy Dudley, Tina Sweeney and Cathy Corya, and each has their own reason for volunteering.

Sweeney is the volunteer coordinator for the soup kitchen, and on this particular morning, because another volunteer wasn't able to attend, she filled in. "But that's okay, 'cause I love it," she said.

Corya volunteers every Thursday, but today an extra noodle lady was needed so she got drafted.

Dudley is here "because Tina called me and begged me to come," she said, as the others busily at work cheered for her.

"I try to volunteer at least one day a week and missed signing up this week, so here I am," she said. "I've never made noodles in my life like this!"

There are four stations in the making of noodles. There's the "roller," who uses a rolling pin to flatten out the balls of kitchen-made noodle dough. The "presser" runs the dough through a dough pressing machine. The "double presser" does it again with another high-fangled machine, and then there's the actual "noodle cutter" who runs the double-pressed dough through the cutter to make the noodles. The cutter probably has the hardest job; she has to lay out the newly cut noodles on cookie sheets so they'll dry correctly.

Noodle making is important to the Bread of Life, and more Noodle Ladies are needed. They can be male, female, teenagers, retirees, service teams — it doesn't matter.

It's the noodles that matter, and when it comes to BoL fundraising they are vital.

The 2017 annual noodle drive-thru benefit netted the BoL more than $12,000, and, except for the pandemic years the fundraiser continues to grow.

The sales goal for the 2012 event was 1,000 meals, and 2,131 meals were sold during the March 2022 event. That's $32,000 going to an organization in the business of turning waste into bounty for an entire community.

Of course, there's also the noodle sale in November every year for which noodles must be made.

Ready-to-cook noodles for $5.50 a bag can be pre-ordered and are usually ready the second Saturday in November, and noodle making is a high priority for that as well.

For more information about being a noodle maker visit the Bread of Life's Facebook page or call (or text) Sweeney at 812-662-4887.

Contact Bill Rethlake at 812-651-0876 or email bill.rethlake@greensburgdailynews.com

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