Family Kitchen, closed in the wake of a fire that damaged two neighboring buildings, one a church, is scheduled to reopen today.

The kitchen, a nonprofit organization, feeds as many as 150 people at lunch or dinner every day. The space it leases from Trinity Episcopal Church at 231 N.W. Idaho Ave. is connected by a breezeway to a former Lutheran church damaged early Wednesday morning in a suspected arson fire. The neighboring Trinity church, 469 Wall St., was damaged beyond use.

Pat Roden, Family Kitchen trustees president, said in an announcement Monday that Bend city departments cleared the kitchen to open for use.

Roden said the kitchen will resume service with its regular 5 p.m. dinner today. The kitchen serves meals to the homeless and other disadvantaged clients, but, in truth, said Randy Heise, the organization’s director of development and marketing, a meal is available to “whoever walks through the door.”

“We do not discriminate; we do not preach,” Heise said Monday. “We figure people are walking through the door because they need a nutritious meal.”

The building in which the kitchen is located experienced only smoke damage from a fire that was set, according to authorities, in the adjacent building. The complex, St. Helens Hall, is used by several groups, from Alcoholics Anonymous to Community Counseling to Civil Air Patrol.

In all, someone set seven separate fires early Wednesday around 2 a.m. in the area around St. Helens Place and Jefferson Place: two buildings, two vehicles, two garages and a woodpile.

Police, joined by the Oregon State Fire Marshal, Oregon State Police, FBI and U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, investigated the fire scenes.

Damage to the Episcopal church is estimated at $250,000, according to police. A $10,000 reward is available for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.

Family Kitchen, an arm of the church with its own directors and funding sources, lost a quantity of food, mostly perishable items such as dairy products and produce, when refrigerators and freezers in the building lost power after the fire, Roden said.

A cleaning crew took care of the smoke damage.

The kitchen serves a hot lunch at 11 a.m. each Monday, Wednesday and Friday and noon Saturday; dinner is served 5 p.m. every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. To the Friday dinner come many young families whose budgets don’t stretch those last few days of the week or month, Heise said.

Diners at Family Kitchen are asked only to leave with full stomachs, he said.

“We treat them just as they would be treated at any restaurant in Bend.”

Family Kitchen serves about 5,000 meals per month — 53,255 total in 2012. It also provides bag lunches for distribution by Central Oregon Veterans Outreach to area homeless camps.

You can help

Interested in volunteering to assist at the Family Kitchen? Call 541-610-6511.