Every Friday around 11:30 a.m., Imani Bragg CC’27’s adrenaline starts to spike. She’s giving instructions to a team of volunteers while putting the final touches on a meal that will feed as many as 250 people. But the pressure cooker, as she calls it, is one of her favorite parts of the day.

“I feel like I’m in an episode of The Bear every week,” she says.

Much like the show’s main character, Bragg is a Chicago-born head chef — but she puts her skills to work at Columbia Community Impact’s Community Lunch Soup Kitchen. She helps plan, prepare and serve the weekly meal at Broadway Presbyterian Church, offering to-go bags in addition to a formal sit-down meal for homeless and low-income neighborhood residents. Bragg started volunteering with Community Lunch during her first year on campus, working her way up to her current leadership position.

“There’s a stigma around the homeless community, like we should just give them whatever food we have regardless of what it is, but I don’t think that’s fair,” Bragg says. “Everyone deserves access to healthy food. I take a lot of pride in making sure that what we serve tastes and looks good.”

Bragg often draws inspiration from what she or her fellow chefs and volunteers are craving. A few weeks ago, she crafted an Italian-inspired menu with tiramisu to satisfy her sweet tooth. . One of her favorite menus was in October 2024, when she planned a meal in celebration of Filipino American History Month. Bragg herself is half Filipino, and used recipes from her mother and grandmother to make dishes like sinigang and chicken adobo. She said a Filipino patron came up to her afterward to thank her for such delicious food.

“That made me really happy and stuck with me,” she says. “The fact that he wanted to thank me personally mattered a lot.”

Bragg broke down what a typical Friday looks like with Community Lunch.

Mornings

“I have to get to the church by 8:00 a.m. We take out the vegetables and meat we’ve already prepped, and we’ll spend the first two hours cooking vegetables for sides. We try to start the soup around 9:00 a.m. because that also takes a while, and then I get started on protein around 10:00 a.m. Also around that time, volunteers and coordinators will start packing bags for to-go meals with fruit and a juice box. We prep between 70 and 100 bags, and then those will be used for the to-go plates. If we have any starches, like pasta, we’ll do that around 11:00 a.m.; we’ve been doing a lot of sauces recently, so we’ll do those then, too, so that they’re fresh for service.

Afternoons

“We put out the first round of protein, starch and vegetables at noon and then we’ll have an assembly line of volunteers for to-go meals. We try to have a hard stop around 12:15 p.m. for cooking, because indoor service starts at 12:30 p.m. We have to make announcements for the indoor patrons; we’ll give them a rundown of the menu, note how to be wary of allergens, things like that. And then the church’s pastor will say a prayer. If we don’t have a crazy number of dishes, I try to be on the service line. We lay out three plates on a tray, which one person takes to a table with patrons. We try to mimic restaurant-style service. That’s a really important part of our work — making people feel as though they’re getting the same service as if they were choosing to eat here.”

Evenings

“Service ends at 1:30 p.m., and we break down the tables and clean the kitchen after that. Then we have a family meal for all of us in the kitchen around 2:00 p.m. It’s nice to connect with people whom I would have otherwise not been able to spend time with, and I’ve made really good friends, too. I head home after that, and I usually call my mom and tell her about my day, since that’s when she’s finished at work or on a break. Then I like to take a hot shower and maybe nap before I start on my homework and readings for class.”