Dining A La King: Goshen woman leaves corporate gig to feed those in need

GOSHEN — In her past job, Dawn Yoder would assess the value of workers in a few hours and decide whether the company should keep them.

She would decide whether the person should be fired and then break the news.

In her current role, she feeds everyone who comes to the table, often with food that was donated.

Yoder is the kitchen administrator and development director at The Window, 223 S. Main St., which has been helping people since 1967. It offers places to shower, hot meals, clothing, a food pantry and more. For almost two years, Yoder has prepared food, overseen a few staff and volunteers, and raised money for the agency.

Her job there started with Executive Director Ed Swartley taking her to lunches every six months or so. She would write a check, feel “better about my awful self,” she said, and go back to work. She’d been living in Goshen since 2010 and discovered The Window because of an employee for her company.

Yoder was a corporate trainer for an Illinois company in the advertising field. Her focus was efficiency and in addition to sessions for employees in the Midwest, she would assess their work and sometimes reach out to them to do a ride-along.

They were usually excited because they remembered her from training class, she said.

“I would ride with them and essentially by noon my job was to decide whether to keep this person or whether we could save money by letting them go,” she said.

Yoder was the henchman and took solace in being compassionate as she fired them. She was paid well because of how awful the work was, she said.

Two summers ago, Swartley texted Yoder and asked if she could cook. She had run an underground catering company when she lived in Michigan and said yes. When they met for lunch, he told her he was losing his kitchen administrator and offered her the job.

“He told me what it paid,” Yoder said. “I managed to keep a straight face and went home and laughed and laughed and laughed at this silly man.”

But she couldn’t sleep that night and the next day, she drove to the corporate headquarters and told them she wanted to try to do this. Yoder’s employers said they would keep the door open.

So, off she went to work in the small kitchen at the nonprofit.

For breakfast, she offers donated doughnuts from Dutch Maid Bakery, coffee and hard-boiled eggs to get some protein into the mix.

For lunch, about 80 people come to The Window for a hot meal on the weekdays. Another 50 Meals on Wheels go out the door. Twenty or so people get a packed lunch they can heat up at work.

The person who used to do a job like one of the judges on the TV show “Chopped,” now takes the food that’s donated and creates dishes like the contestants.

Because it now has a refrigerated truck, The Window works with the South Bend Food Bank to get donations from a number of Goshen grocery stores.

Yoder started out saying she’d cook but not interact with people. That didn’t last and her views have changed. She’s gone from judging and saying that anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps to believing that many who come to The Window couldn’t just go out and get a job because of addiction, mental health or past incidents. Yoder focuses on loving people and even tattooed the word “grace” on her wrist.

“Grace is giving someone what they don’t deserve,” she said.

Yoder has become more comfortable seeing the world less clearly, with gray answers. She’s just focused on offering meals with doses of love and dignity.

“If you can do something to make the world better,” she said, “you should.”

The dining room at The Window has offered food and hospitality to those in need for decades. Yoder follows a long line of employees and volunteers who have offered that. She may have had farther to travel to get there, but now she sees things differently and works to extend a table to all who need a spot.

“This is where my passion lies,” Yoder said, “with the people who live on the fringes.”

I’m hungry. Let’s eat.