Serving Up
HOPE
Story and Photography: Rob Biertempfel
Mark Latterner, C’81, became executive director of Jubilee Kitchen four years ago after a long and successful career as an executive with Citizens Bank. His background made him an ideal candidate to direct a long-overdue renovation of the soup kitchen in Pittsburgh’s Hill District.
Yet, even for an experienced banker such as Latterner, orchestrating a $5 million capital campaign to improve Jubilee Kitchen’s facilities and services turned out to be a massive and often arduous chore.
“Four years ago, I naively thought, ‘How hard could it be to raise money to fix up this building and hire a new director? It’ll take a year or two at the most, right?’” Latterner said with a wry smile. “There’s a lot of competition for donations, and, at the beginning, we couldn’t even produce financial statements. We’ve had struggles, but we’ve also had good support.”
The renovation will enable Jubilee to improve the lives of hundreds of needy people every day. That is what drove Latterner to stay the course whenever he was tempted to throw up his hands and retreat into retirement after being snubbed by a potential donor.
“It’s been more of a slog than I ever thought it would be, but we’re finally getting there,” Latterner said. “Once you get invested in something, it’s hard not to see it to its conclusion. I couldn’t walk away in the middle of it, even though I thought about it lots of times for personal reasons.”
Jubilee Kitchen is hunkered on a narrow, craggy side street off Fifth Avenue, a few dozen steps from a corner bus stop where many of the Kitchen’s visitors arrive early each day. On a sunny and unseasonably warm spring morning, a dozen or so people milled around outside the building. As he made the winding walk from the main entrance to his second-floor office, Latterner paused to share a smile, a handshake, and a few words with everyone he met. All the volunteers and many of the regular visitors know Latterner by his first name—he’s a familiar face to them.
Leaning forward in the chair in his sparse office, Latterner picked up one of the floorplan designs. He pointed to the drawing and excitedly gestured around the building—an elevator will be installed here, a career counseling center will go there, the expanded and re-equipped kitchen will dominate the first floor.
“Mark perseveres. He want to help people build better lives.
– Al Novak, C’81”
The ambitious plan will add 1,300 in square footage to the aging, brick-and-mortar structure.
\In early April, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, state Senator Jay Costa, U.S. Representative Summer Lee, and a gaggle of other local politicians thrust shovels into the dirt to officially kick off the project. Construction got under way in June and is expected to be completed by summer 2025.
Mission accomplished? Not quite. Even as the ground was being broken, Jubilee’s “Renewing Hope, Rebuilding Lives” capital campaign still was about $700,000 short of its goal. Latterner has faith the capital campaign committee will get its job done. “We have a lot of irons in the fire, so I’m confident we’ll get there,” Latterner said.
Latterner grew up part of a big, Catholic family in Cresson. After graduating from Saint Vincent College with an accounting degree, Latterner spent two years in the monastery before deciding that joining the religious life was not his path. He earned an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh and in 1990 went to work with Mellon Bank. Mellon eventually was acquired by Citizens Bank, and Latterner was named market president in 2016.
“Saint Vincent made a huge difference for me spiritually,” Latterner said. Inspired by the Benedictine values of hospitality, community, and love of neighbor, he became chairman of Jubilee Kitchen’s board of directors in the 2000s.
The soup kitchen was founded in 1979 by Sister Liguori Rossner on the site of an abandoned warehouse. “She was a very strong-willed woman, and I was very fond of her—even though she scared me a little,” Latterner said with a chuckle.
Latterner gestures toward construction site of what will become a loading dock and meal pickup station adjacent to Jubilee Kitchen.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, more than 162,000 Allegheny County residents—roughly thirteen percent of the population—don’t have access to enough food to lead healthy, active lives. Jubilee Kitchen is the only soup kitchen in Pittsburgh open 365 days a year for breakfast, lunch, and takeout meals. Last year, it distributed about 45,000 meals.
Among its services are a clothing room; access to showers, bathrooms, and a laundry; and transportation assistance. It maintains two food pantries, including one in Polish Hill that delivers daily meals to more than 100 shut-in senior citizens. Jubilee also operates the John Heinz Child Development Center, a four-star facility that provides high-quality and affordable childcare to low-income families.
The staff of volunteers at Jubilee offers counseling on personal finances, housing, employment, and physical and mental health issues. “We try to have a continuum of care,” Latterner said. “Sometimes it’s really hard for people to [go along with] it because of their struggles, but that doesn’t mean you don’t try.”
When Sister Liguori died in 2019, it could have marked the demise of Jubilee Kitchen. Not wanting her legacy to fade, Latterner stepped into the executive director role and almost immediately began building momentum for the renovation project.
“He could have just retired, played golf, and bought season tickets to the Steelers and Pirates,” said Al Novak, C’81, Latterner’s close friend and freshman year roommate and current vice president for philanthropy and alumni relations at Saint Vincent. “But instead, there he is. ”
Latterner, 65, knows he can’t lead Jubilee Kitchen forever. Yet, he is determined to not pass the baton until the renovation is complete and a strategic plan is drawn up to ensure Jubilee’s doors remain open for another fourty-five years and beyond.
“I’ll do this for as long as I can, but, obviously, I’d like to spend fewer hours [working], not more,” he said. “We need to make sure we have the right infrastructure and fundraising capabilities.”
Latterner’s long-term goal is to vastly expand Jubilee Kitchen’s portfolio of programs. Ideally, Jubilee someday will be able to offer rent-free transitional housing and beefed-up employment services such as résumé preparation, interviewing skills, and career-building strategies.
“We help people become self-sufficient,” Latterner said. “We tell them, ‘You’re not on your own. We’re here to help you figure it out,’ and then they can have hope. That’s our slogan: Serving hope.”
