With a kick-off on Nov. 22, the Bothell Community Kitchen became a reality.

Never heard of it? Co-founder Laura Dooley likely would not be surprised.

“We just have people kind of trickling in,” she said.

A project of Dooley’s and friend Jeanne Lowman, the hope is the free meals offered by the kitchen eventually can feed up to 100 people weekly. Dooley and a roster of volunteers serve the dinners from 3-4 p.m. Sundays in the Fellowship Hall of the Bothell United Methodist Church.

According to Dooley, the idea is not just to offer a free, hot meal to those who need it, though that certainly is one goal. She also just talked about fellowship, about meeting your neighbors. There are no income guidelines for receiving the meals.

“This is our way of giving back to the community of Bothell and our neighbors for all that you do to make our community the special place it is,” said the church’s Char Seawell.

Dooley said she first got the notion to launch the dinners after hearing that Bothell’s Hopelink office was being consolidated with that of the Kirkland center. She praised Hopelink and said the new facility offers a wonderful grocery-store-style food bank.

“But there is still a need right here,” Dooley said.

After earning the approval of church leadership, she added the next step in setting up the kitchen was a lot of research. Fund-raising and finding food were the first major topics of discussion.

“We kind of started without any real money,” Dooley admitted. “We had a few hundred dollars, but things just kind of worked out.”

Backers organized a Christmas concert fund-raiser with the proceeds split between the kitchen and Hopelink.

Finding food turned out not to be a real problem.

“There’s been a lot of goodwill,” Dooley said.

A number of local businesses have stepped up to help, including Hillcrest Bakery in Bothell, Susan’s Sweets in Country Village and Amy’s Bakery in Mill Creek. Everett’s StockPot Soup offered to supply 100 servings of their wares a week. So far, Dooley admits that much soup is simply more than the Bothell kitchen can use. They already donate any unused food to another kitchen in Everett.

As far as drawing on established charities for food, Dooley added the community kitchen must stay in operation for one year before becoming eligible for contributions from sources such as Food Lifeline. Still, Dooley and her partners have come up with some pretty impressive menus, including a traditional turkey dinner for Thanksgiving. Other dinners have consisted of pork roast and chicken enchiladas.

“It’s good food,” Dooley said.

Dooley wanted to emphasize that while the community kitchen is an outreach of the Bothell Methodist Church, there is no overt religious aspect to the weekly meals.

“It’s a ministry of hospitality for the church,” she said. If someone is simply lonely, they are more than invited to stop by, Dooley added.

For now, a group of about 15 to 20 volunteers is sufficient to put together the meals beginning at around noon on Sundays. Dooley said a group of men come in after and “they just clean, clean, clean.”

“That’s great for me, because I don’t like doing dishes.”

The Bothell United Methodist Church is located next to Bothell High at 1851 92nd Ave., N.E. For information, call the church office at (425) 486-7132.