Hospitality can be shown in many ways. Each person has their own special way to be hospitable, but the most common way is by providing a warm meal. Through Oklahoma City, Putnam City’s (PCBC) Community Bridges outreach program, Executive Chef Jeff Dalton and his wife, Lindsey, of Nourish Catering have started a ministry where food is more than a meal. It’s a ministry.
Nourish was officially founded in October 2025, but Dalton has been in the food industry as a chef for more than 15 years working at hotels, a variety of restaurants and country clubs. He first went to culinary school to pursue his love of cooking, but while there he realized his true passion lies in service to others.
“I realized this was one of my gifts, serving people,” Dalton said. “I found that what brought me joy was the act of serving people. As I grew in my relationship with Christ, I realized that it wasn’t an accident. That I’m designed this way.”
Before starting Nourish in Oklahoma, Dalton served in Albuquerque, N.M., by providing food for churches and those with food insecurities. He saw the need there and felt called to help lead churches in starting their own food ministries.
“There was a huge food insecurity issue there,” Dalton said. “I was looking around saying, ‘There’s got to be a way to help.’”
Through ministries there, Dalton prepared and took food and water to those in need. He also satiated their spiritual hunger by simply praying over them and having spiritual conversations. Dalton spoke of a recent encounter his group had with a lady whose husband was having medical issues. They were able to direct her to somewhere that could help and prayed over the couple.
“It’s not for our own benefit,” Dalton said. “We don’t take videos for social media or anything. We’re out there showing God’s love.”
After serving in New Mexico, the Daltons moved back to Oklahoma to get plugged back in to PCBC where Lindsey grew up. While listening to Pastor Bill Hulse preach, Dalton once again felt the call to service
“I felt this call that said, ‘You need to go talk to (Hulse),” he said. “I told him that I was a chef and that I was being called to help in food ministry.”
Hulse told Dalton that PCBC had been considering starting a food ministry, but were just waiting for the right person.
“Over the course of about eight months, starting at the beginning of last year, (Nourish) grew into what it is now,” Dalton said.
Through support from PCBC’s Community Bridges ministry, Nourish Catering was able to get its feet off the ground and start serving those in need. Outside of catering for events, Nourish doesn’t charge the church or individuals for meals. Most of the time the Daltons handle meal preparation by themselves, but if an event is too large for the two of them to cover, they’ll enlist help from volunteers from PCBC’s church body. This acts as an additional mentorship opportunity for those in youth groups with culinary backgrounds.“We try to bring them in as like a mentorship program,” Dalton said. “We have the capacity to love on these kids and teach them culinary skills.”
Primarily, Nourish caters to churches and nonprofit organizations, specializing in curating menus for various events. They also have a large menu of pre-made meals ranging from Barbeque to Italian. During the holidays, Nourish makes “take-and-bake” meals. These are pre-made meals that are ready to bake and serve right out of the box.
“We do all of the work for you, you can pick it up, pop the food in the oven and it’s ready to go,” Dalton said. “We try to make people’s holiday season a little bit less stressful.”
Like most restaurants and catering companies, Nourish has contracts with distributors and wholesalers to get their produce from. This, along with utilizing PCBC’s commercial kitchen, minimizes the costs to make the meals.
“That’s one of the advantages going with Nourish,” Dalton said. “We’re not having to build in all of those costs into our pricing which is the whole idea, to help us be able to serve people better.”
From church banquets and weddings to boxed lunches, Nourish serves the Oklahoma City area with handcrafted, fresh food prepared with excellence and heart.
For more information about Nourish Catering, visit https://www.nourishcatering.org/.
