Photo by Bonnie Heater Quinton Best, a licensed practical nurse with the Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Health and Wellness Center, located on Barnes Avenue, takes Chaplain (Col.) Craig Wiley’s, (left), the installation chaplain, blood pressure during the lunch hour Sept. 18 inside the Fort Gordon Post Exchange. The staff and an American Red Cross volunteer gave free blood pressure checks and they talked to men about how to prevent prostate cancer as well as treatment for the disease. September was prostate cancer awareness month. The Augusta community joined Fort Gordon Soldiers and members of the Concerned Women Inc., Sept. 17 for the groundbreaking ceremony of the new Master’s Table soup kitchen. The new facility, once built, will be located at 7th and Fenwick Street in Augusta.

Most of the participants who attended the ceremony are volunteers at the soup kitchen.

Two of the volunteers were Beatrice Sanders, a Fort Gordon protocol assistant, and her husband Art. Both have helped out at the soup kitchen for 12 years. “We started volunteering with the Master’s Table [soup kitchen] when I was the Grovetown Senior Girl Scout Leader,” said Beatrice Sanders.

Sgt. 1st Class Kevin McGinnis [at the far right end of the American flag] supervises his classmates as they practice for an upcoming military retreat ceremony to be held at the Signal Towers’ flagpole. The Soldiers are in the Senior Leader Course, Class #25B-012-09, at the Signal Corps Regimental Noncommissioned Officer Academy on post. The military retreat ceremony serves a twofold purpose. It signals the end of the official duty day and serves as a ceremony for paying respect to the flag. “When the girls [scouts] all graduated and went to college, Art and I continued to work at the soup kitchen,” she added. “The work became dear to our hearts and we just wanted to help others.

“I told people about the soup kitchen,” she added. “Many of our Soldiers I spoke to volunteered there.”

Among the Fort Gordon Soldier volunteers are members of the post’s Sergeant Audie Murphy Club and Soldiers attending classes at the Regimental Noncommissioned Officer Academy. The SAMC is a nonprofit organization committed to contributing to the local community through charity work. The club is operated solely by its members and is not affiliated with the Army. However, its membership is comprised of the top 2 percent of the noncommissioned officers in the U.S. Army.

For nearly 17 years, Golden Harvest Food Bank has operated the Master’s Table soup kitchen in downtown Augusta, providing a hot, nutritious midday meal to the hungry 365 days a year. According to the Master’s Table brochure, this year the average number of guests served at the facility has climbed to over 300 per day.

The Master’s Table in Augusta began in 1982, the year the Golden Harvest Food Bank started.

The building serving as the former Master’s Table soup kitchen, which was located at 842nd Fenwick Street in Augusta, was deteriorating. It had a leaky roof and plugged-up sewers which needed constant repairs, according to Vikki Blair Adkins, Golden Harvest Food Bank’s director of development. “There was only enough floor space to seat 45 people at a time, so lunch had to be served in rotation and in just an hour and half,” said Vikki Adkins. “The crowded conditions left no time for prayer, counseling, or other services and referrals the guests may have needed.”

A new facility for the community was desperately needed. Richard Fletcher, a local architect, designed the building. R.D. Brown, the contractor, projects the new soup kitchen will be completed May 2010. More than $1.3 million has been raised from donations for the new building, but $53,000 is still needed.

Anyone who would like to volunteer at the facility can call (706) 722-0607. Preparation and serving hours are from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. seven days a week. Donations can be made by going online to

www.goldenharvest.org. Service members and federal employees can also make contributions through the Combined Federal Campaign. Golden Harvest Food Bank is listed.