Cooking and community: meet Shawn!

“I wanted to use my skills for a greater purpose,” Kitchen Manager Shawn Neidecker said. “I wanted to use these skills to serve people.”

Kitchen Manager Shawn Neidecker (right) poses with a volunteer inside the kitchen at Micah’s Mission in February, 2026.

At the heart of Micah’s Mission sits a large kitchen that serves three meals a day – every day – to anyone in need of good food and great company.

Each meal represents more than the sum of its ingredients, according to Kitchen Manager Shawn Neidecker. 

“It’s about building a community and letting them know they are seen,” she said. 

It’s a calling

Shawn joined the Churches United team in January and, since then, has taken ownership of all food service operations inside Micah’s Mission at 1901 1st Ave N, Moorhead. 

On the daily she tackles everything from the common tasks – washing dishes, serving food, and cleaning – to the large-scale jobs like managing the inventory, training a kitchen team, and balancing the budget and grant compliance. 

Not to mention she cooks a mountain of food for each meal!

“My goal is to provide warm, calorie dense and nutritious food,” Shawn said. 

She works hard to ensure every meal hits all the main food groups that guests need to be healthy. 

This is not just a job, Shawn said, it’s a calling. 

“I wanted to use my skills for a greater purpose such as hunger relief and food justice,” she said. “I wanted to use these skills to serve people in need rather than just feeding (people) for a profit.”

Her vision is to use the kitchen at Micah’s Mission to build community amongst neighbors and, most importantly, provide comfort and dignity to vulnerable populations.

From February 1st to February 16th, 2026, Shawn and her team have served 371 brunches, 774 lunches and 1,264 dinners to men, women, and children. Breakfasts are al la carte with cold cereal, toast and pastries. 

Community-made meals

Shawn fell in love with cooking as a child. She grew up in a large family and, from a young age, helped her parents prepare meals for 12 kids. 

“From the get go: huge quantities of food,” Shawn laughed. “My mom did a lot of down home cooked meals and my dad was also a great cook who canned a lot of food from the garden.”

Shawn and her coworker Yaya Perez in February, 2026.

Now Shawn shares that joy with her team at Micah’s Mission, the Churches United guests who help the kitchen run everyday, and the countless volunteers from the community who come in to lend a hand. 

Much of the food that is served at Micah’s Mission is donated by the community, too. 

“It comes in from grocery stores, it comes from individuals, it comes from families. It comes from all over,” Shawn said. 

A carefully maintained food pantry sits across the hall from the kitchens. It is filled with countless nonperishable food items – armfuls of dried pasta, various sauces, and shelves full of canned beans and veggies. One item that the pantry can never get enough of is powdered milk, she said, because dairy products are in such a high demand. 

It can be difficult planning meals each day, Shawn said, because she needs to take a mix of donated items and combine them into one cohesive and nutritious meal for the guests. 

Day after day, however, Shawn and her team pull together hearty and flavorful meals for a large number of people. 

Some of our wonderful volunteers!

The best part of the day, Shawn said, is when she actually gets to serve the food she has worked so hard to prepare and talk with the guests, staff and volunteers. 

This is about more than feeding people, Shawn said. It's a community. 

“I am focusing on them,” Shawn said. “Not just the task.”