Emporia Church of Christ is scaling back Free Spaghetti Friday to a monthly event, due to growing numbers of students attending. Until this month, Free Spaghetti Friday was a weekly event. They will now being serving it only on the first Friday of each month.

For 15 years, the Church of Christ made batches of spaghetti, salad, corn, green beans and a variety of desserts for Emporia State students. “At this point we are in a transition phase,” said Neil Taylor, minister at the church. “We have seen a large growth in the students that come to meals over the past 15 years that we have been serving them. When meals were first served we would have maybe 10 students come to those meals. This year we have been averaging close to 330 per week.”

The church is currently having a discussion as to whether they can continue doing Free Spaghetti Fridays. “The ladies hope that we can keep doing it,” said Ginger Hass, church worker.

“And some guys… they’ve never been here to see what we do, so they say ‘We think you need to do this.’” The church will have a meeting to finalize plans. “With having a lot more students then we have had in past years this caused a few concerns,” Hass said. “First, space and second, volunteers. Money is not a concern. We have been blessed greatly by God for this service.”

Another concern was mobility for the staff. “The house the meals are served in is small and often presents space issues,” Taylor said. “It’s hard to get around for both the volunteers and the students. Also, we have lost some volunteers and some of our volunteers are getting older and struggle to keep up with the pace of serving 330 plus students.”

Updates to the plans for Spaghetti Friday can be found on their Instagram at @empcoc_sghettifriday.

“I truly believe a good solution will be found that will solve all these issues and keep this service present for years to come,” Taylor said. “Maybe that answer is found in a venue change or maybe something else.”