Face to Face Germantown, a community-based charity organization and housing shelter, on Feb. 17 expanded its free meal service to seven days a week.

The program started over 40 years ago, Face to Face’s Executive Director Mary Kay Meeks-Hank told the Local. The service had previously run five days a week, excluding Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

The service operates twice a day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 123 East Price St. in Germantown, offering a hot meal to those in need.

These services “are clearly needed,” Meeks-Hank said, “with the SNAP benefits being cut. People are so nervous about losing their SNAP benefits. So when I announced two weeks ago that we would be going to the seven-day model, two meals a day, people literally clapped in their seats. It’s a holistic way to address the inequities that exist in this society, and Germantown is a clear example of that.”

Along with the food program, Face to Face employs three full-time attorneys, three full-time social workers, and two full-time behavioral health specialists, offering help to the people they serve.

One area their legal center has focused on in Germantown is the issue of “tangled titles.” In 2022, a new law went into effect in the city to help prevent tangled titles, which result from heirs not acting after the record owner of a property dies. According to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia has over 10,000 tangled titles, half of them becoming tangled within the last decade. The city law requires all funeral service providers to provide their clients with a tangled title information sheet, about legal assistance, probating estates, and how to avoid tangled titles.

“Once we get that cleared, we’ll have that individual or that family create a will to begin to put the wealth back into that family and this community,” Meeks-Hank said.

With the help of a professional chef, sous chef, and volunteers, Face to Face serves breakfast and a hot midday meal every day of the week in their community dining area, served restaurant-style.

“Is philanthropy the answer to social inequity? No, it is not. But since we don’t have any other strong and viable options at the moment, those of us who have been privileged by the system that exists, and who feel that we owe our society something better, have to provide these services,” Meeks-Hank said. “It isn’t the long-term answer, but for those, for the foreseeable future, we’ll serve two meals a day.”

Providing these services, Face to Face is often in need of donations and volunteers.

Anyone interested in donating can visit facetofacegermantown.org or drop off donations at 123 E Price St. For volunteer work, Meeks-Hank said anyone interested can email Ally@FacetoFaceGermantown.org for more information.

“We do believe in this kind of holistic way of treating people first with hospitality, second with mutuality,” Meeks-Hank said. “Treating people like human beings, like they deserve. It’s transformative for everybody, volunteers, staff, guests, anybody.”