An urban soup kitchen may not be most kids’ idea of a place to spend the last week of their summer vacation but that’s where 16-year-old Drew Garrison and his 15-year-old sister Olivia are headed. At the end of this month, these two Shelter Island High School students will travel alone to help out at Miriam’s Kitchen in the basement of a church on Virginia Avenue NW in Washington, D.C.

They got the idea when family friends, John and Sarah Murphy, visited from Washington. Several years ago, John and Sarah worked with Alan Garrison, their father, at Vine Street Café. They left the Island and John now  works at Miriam’s Kitchen, where he is assistant director of kitchen operations and head of the dinner program. Drew and Olivia talked to John about working with him. Their parents agreed and helped make travel plans.

According to the Miriam’s Kitchen website, last year the organization served over 55,000 meals to more than 4,000 guests, most of whom are “chronically homeless,” living with both mental and physical illnesses on the streets for more than a year. All of the food served at Miriam’s Kitchen is donated by Costco, private donors and farmers’ markets. John faces the challenge of providing fresh, tasty food every night, without knowing ahead of time what he’ll be cooking, and often working with inexperienced volunteers. One of the Kitchen’s long-time guests describes the meals this way: “It’s much more like going to a restaurant than other dinner programs. If it wasn’t for this place, I really wouldn’t be able to eat.”

The soup kitchen has no shortage of volunteers — Michelle Obama helped serve risotto for lunch there at the end of February. Also on the menu that day was a salad made with fruit donated by the First Lady’s office.

Miriam’s Kitchen will be a completely new experience for Olivia and Drew, definitely off the map of tourist destinations. They both said they don’t know what to expect but they’ll work in the kitchen doing whatever they’re asked. Drew mentioned that it would be an interesting experience and they’d get to meet lots of new people. He likes to help people; he spoke about the stigma attached to the homeless and how good it would be to give them healthy alternatives to eat.

Olivia said she hasn’t been around many homeless people. She doesn’t know of anyone who can’t get something to eat whenever they want. If she’s hungry after school, she’ll head over to Fedi’s with her friends to get a snack. She said it seems strange to her that some people don’t always have enough to eat.

“It will be a good thing to get them out of their comfort zone,” said their mother, Katherine. “They have so much and it’s important that they see that a lot of other people don’t. As a parent, I want to open up the world to my children. They need to try to change their one little corner of it.”

For a week, these two hard-working kids will open up their own world a little bit and help feed some hungry people too.