MARYSVILLE — Kay Cannell’s health has prevented her from continuing the work she started three years ago, so Teri Branan and others have stepped up to feed the homeless of Marysville in her stead.

When Branan first met her, Cannell’s husband was in the end stages of cancer, but Cannell still organized meals for the area homeless three times a week. Since Branan has stepped in for Cannell this year, she and her fellow volunteers have gone from feeding close to 10 people in the Comeford and Ebey Waterfront parks to feeding as many as 35 homeless and needy individuals in the basement of the Evergreen Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Church, at Fourth Street and Columbia Avenue, from 1-2 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

While the group has at least half a dozen volunteers, Branan said that they could always use more helping hands and donations of food, money and supplies. Marysville-Pilchuck High School teachers are donating to the “community lunch” through the United Way, and donations can also be made to the community lunch through Mountain View Presbyterian Church.

Meals include fare such as homemade chicken and dumplings, green salad and apple cobbler, which many of the volunteers pay for from their own pockets, or put together with food from their own kitchens.

“After the meals, we try to send them off with bags of food,” volunteer Chris Curtiss said of the diners. “We don’t like leftovers.”

“They’re just regular people who long for fellowship,” volunteer Sharon Jacob said. “They’re going through hard times, but they’re still just people.”

Dan Michell and Dan Lamanc are both semi-regulars at the community lunch.

“It’s hard being homeless, but at least here, I get to see my friends,” Michell said.

“I’m glad they’re here,” Lamanc said of the volunteers. “If not, a lot of people would go hungry.”