(This story was originally published on The Dice Tower podcast several years ago. If you’d rather listen to the silky, smooth voice of Eric Summerer read it, you can do so HERE.)

During the summer, I lead mission trips for high school students to serve the homeless in Atlanta. One of my favorite things we do is cook up a big helping of pancakes and sit down at one of the local soup kitchens and eat with people. 

We’ve found that, more often than not, people are hungrier for conversation and interaction than they are for food. And it’s amazing to sit and listen to the stories they have to tell.

One hot, summer day we headed downtown with enough supplies to feed around a hundred people. We had never fed that many before but we always took more than we figured we needed. However, when we arrived at the soup kitchen the parking lot was already packed with people. I don’t know why that particular day was any different from all the other days. But I knew we would be cutting it close on having enough food. 

We headed inside and the students started cooking and setting up. After about 30 minutes, we opened the doors for the people outside to come in. The parking lot had swelled with even more people, but the good news was that we still hadn’t quite reached one hundred people.

Just in case, I sent a volunteer out to buy more pancake mix and supplies as the students started flying around. They were serving coffee, passing out plates of pancakes, and more importantly, sitting down and talking with people. 

As time went by, more and more people were coming in. We handed out the last stack of pancakes as a wave of fifteen more people walked in. This was not good. I called the volunteer who had left twenty minutes ago. 

No answer. 

I walked up to the front of the room and got everyone’s attention. I thanked them all for being there and explained the situation. I assured them that more food was on the way and we would be serving again shortly. 

A collective groan went through the room. Though the people there were homeless, many of them had jobs to get to or places to be. They came expecting to eat breakfast, and now there was none. 

I understood their frustration. I remembered when I had lived on the streets of downtown Atlanta. I thought about the times when soup kitchens opened later than they said or didn’t open at all. I remembered standing in a parking lot for hours to only be let down and have to find food somewhere else. 

My heart sunk, but then my phone rang. It was the volunteer who had gotten lost but had found the grocery store and would be back in just a few minutes! 

That was good news, but we would still need time to cook. I needed something to help pass the time. One of the men who helps run the soup kitchen walked up, and I asked if he had any ideas. He brought out a big cardboard box that had been donated a few days before. I opened the box to find board games. Jenga, Connect-4, Battleship, and the like. I looked at the guy with a puzzled look.

“You think this will work?” I asked. 

“It’s worth a shot,” he said. 

I went back to the front of the room with the box. I got the people’s attention once more and asked if anyone wanted to play a board game. T

here was a long silent pause while they looked at me like I was a little bit crazy.

But then a man in the back of the room raised his hand. He said, “I bet there isn’t a person in this room that can beat me at battleship.” 

A woman across the room chimed in, “Bring it on chump!” She walked up to me and took the game.

A table of people next to me asked for a box of Jenga, and a young man walked up to get Connect-4. Slowly but surely, the box emptied, and the room was filled with games, laughter, trash talk, and the unique sound of Jenga blocks crashing to the table. 

A little while later, we started serving pancakes again, and everyone that walked in the door was fed. 

But then something strange happened. 

No one got up to leave.

Normally, people eat, hang out and talk for a little while, and then leave. But on that day folks just kept playing games long after they were done eating.

They were simple mass-market games, but they had tapped into something that had been missing from the lives of the people in that room.

Ever since that day, every time we go to that soup kitchen to serve pancakes, we make sure to have plenty of games with us.

And I have to say there are few better sites in this world than seeing people sharing a meal and playing a game together.

It might just be pancakes and Jenga, but there is something special about getting people to the table. It takes people from all walks of life and shows them we’re really not that different.

All anyone really wants is someone to eat with and share stories with, someone to talk to and share life with, someone to make them not feel invisible. 

I’m not going to sit here and say that board games can solve homelessness or anything, but maybe they tap into the thing that does.