A line began to form on the sidewalk more than half an hour before a bright orange van pulled up to Baltimore’s Penn North neighborhood.

Out jumped Sue May, a bubbly 55-year-old who has been feeding people with her nonprofit, Love & Cornbread, for five years. As she greeted guests and cheerily unloaded cornbread and chicken soup onto tables set up on the sidewalk, she was filled with worry.

Those waiting to be fed, many of whom she has known for years, looked thinner and more haggard. There are many new faces, too. The food lines in recent weeks have been some of the longest she’s seen.

May and her team have responded by doubling the number of meals. Still, all their scratch-made food is typically wiped out within the hour.

The growing need for food in Baltimore, May said, is a result of federal cuts to food-aid programs, rising food and housing costs and a slowdown in the job market with no end in sight.

“It was already extremely hard, and it feels like it’s getting worse,” May said.

For 16 years, May lived a short drive from Penn North but rarely set foot in the neighborhood, a once-vibrant Black business district that now has the highest number of drug and overdose-related 911 calls in the city.

She used to help major universities hire executives and said she had little time to connect with people at home because she was always on the road.

But that changed in 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests swept the country, May grew frustrated and desperate for human connection.

Her solution: baking a pan of macaroni and cheese to share with strangers in Penn North, an area she knew little about, other than as the epicenter of the uprising after the 2015 police-involved death of Freddie Gray.

It was undeniably naive, May acknowledged with a laugh. “I didn’t have a clue,” she said.

But neighborhood residents greeted May enthusiastically and even helped her hand out food week after week. “If you’re showing up to do something good for the community,” she said, “the community looks out for you.”

She became friends with employees of nearby Phaze 2 barbershop, who helped her start Love & Cornbread. Today, the nonprofit’s professional chefs prepare about 26,000 meals a year from a commercial kitchen in North Baltimore, feeding not only Penn North but a senior center and after-school programs.

The food is just an entry point. Love & Cornbread works with partner organizations that offer blood pressure screenings and mental health and drug addiction treatment for the newly fed.

The need couldn’t be more dire in Penn North, where residents have little access to fresh, healthy food. More often than not, people shop at corner stores stocked with candy, chips and soda, May said.

But food access is only part of the problem. Cooking would be a challenge for many of those who come through Love & Cornbread’s food line and don’t have access to a kitchen, according to May.

Some rent single rooms. Others are unable to pay utility bills or stay in abandoned buildings with no running water, gas and electricity.

So Love & Cornbread’s priority has been serving hot meals and ready-to-eat snacks, with an emphasis on quality ingredients and service.

Those who come are often greeted by a dancing 70-year-old James Briscoe. Dressed in a red tracksuit and stylish sunglasses, Briscoe blasts music and offers fist bumps to almost everyone, from a bounding young boy to older men using walkers.

“We’re dealing with a community that’s downgraded,” Briscoe said. “I try to keep it uplifted.”

On a morning last month, Jerome Allen slumped with fatigue as he patiently waited for his chance to grab a bite from Love & Cornbread’s table. He was homeless, he said, and had not eaten a real meal in three days.

He perked up after taking a sip of hibiscus tea, spiced with juniper berries and sweetened with honey.

“This is good as hell,” Allen said. “It means everything to sit down and have a second to eat something.”

In the kitchen, Executive Chef Kimberly Daniels is in charge of transforming donations from farms, food banks and a meat distributor into well-balanced meals. Daniels, 40, grew up cooking with her mother before going to culinary school at Johnson & Wales University and spending decades working in high-pressure kitchens across the country.

Today, no matter what Love & Cornbread receives in donated food, the final meals have “to be made with love,” she said.

One recent Tuesday, the menu was broccoli slaw with avocado dressing, shredded BBQ chicken and macaroni and cheese. May dropped the meals off at AZIZA PE&CE in East Baltimore, which primarily serves Black girls and LGBTQ youth, in time for the program’s after-school rush.

“I don’t know what this is, but I think it tastes good,” said one student digging into the slaw.

Many of the kids in the program live in areas with limited access to fresh food, so they turn to processed snacks or microwavable meals. It has only gotten harder for AZIZA PE&CE to keep serving students. This year, the group lost $125,000 in federal funding, about three-quarters of its after-school programming budget, Executive Director Saran Fossett said.

Nevertheless, the food remains a priority, she said. “It’s important to us they have these healthy meals, because it may be the only one they have.”

Despite the challenges, Love & Cornbread has found a new way to keep feeding kids.

This fall, it began selling its own cornbread mixes to help fund its partnerships with youth programs, according to the group. More than 80% of the organization’s annual budget of $440,000 comes from donations and grants, but May hopes to become more self-sufficient with cornbread sales.

It’s the same cornbread recipe that fills hungry stomachs at Penn North and AZIZA PE&CE, and that’s the whole point, May said.

“Cornbread is the perfect symbolic vehicle for reminding folks that we’re all around the table together,” she said.