Trinity Lutheran Church on West North Avenue has a roof that always has looked a bit like a Howard Johnson's, so it's fitting it assumed the role of savior of the food.

A week ago, police were in their every-hippie-is-a-suspected-anarchist-until proven-otherwise mode, and so were all over a couple of groups that rode in on school buses to provide food for protesters and anyone else who was hungry.

After Seeds of Peace and Everybody's Kitchen were chased out of a spot beneath the Bloomfield Bridge, and also raided by police in Lawrenceville and off Larimer Avenue, the two buses finally found a home in the parking lot up Buena Vista Street from Trinity Lutheran.

A score of officers arrived there last Tuesday, too, but the pastor, John Cawkins, gave the group permission to stay.

"Biblically, it's what we're called to do as a church," the Rev. Cawkins said. "Provide rest to the weary and feed the hungry."

What followed may not exactly be a reprise of the loaves and fishes story, but it's the closest I've seen to one on the North Side in a while.

Not everyone was thrilled when the buses arrived in the Mexican War Streets last Tuesday. A neighborhood Internet chat began with "FYI - Protesters camped out on Buena Vista Street," and at least one longtime resident gave Mr. Cawkins a verbal lashing he won't soon forget.

Soon enough, though, neighbors were welcoming the groups and Pittsburghers were donating food. On Friday morning, I went to the lot and met a guy who went by "Floppy." He was with Everybody's Kitchen, based in West Virginia. Mr. Cawkins called him "St. James," after the epistle of St. James, which said that "the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." Mr. Cawkins had just given Floppy a Bible he'd requested.

"I think everything's cool now," Floppy said.

They'd fed hundreds of people by then and were ready to feed thousands more. A Strip District merchant had donated a pallet stacked high with cases of raw asparagus, more than these groups could cook. So they were giving fresh vegetables away to anyone who wanted to take some home.

Being something of an aspara-guy, I took the case offered, removed a bunch of asparagus for myself, and dropped the rest off at my neighborhood coffee shop, Hoi Polloi, where neighbors helped themselves to more. Thus the food moved through the streets and into everybody's kitchen.

I went back to the parking lot after the rain cleared Sunday afternoon and talked to Nick -- "just 'Nick' " -- a fit fellow with a neatly trimmed red beard. He was with Seeds of Peace, based in Missoula, Mont. Nick's group had the red school bus and Everybody's Kitchen the orange one.

The pattern here -- first antipathy and then acceptance -- is nothing new to them, Nick said. "Hyper-militancy and hyper-awareness of political activists, even nonviolent ones," often represent the reality when they first arrive in a place. "The fear meter goes through the roof," he said matter-of-factly.

Then people figure out they're harmless, even benevolent. Sharing food is a way of getting people to calm down. Barriers fall in the process.

These folks couldn't give away all the asparagus. They had to compost some. People tend to be wary of food giveaways, Nick said, not trusting themselves to eat food without some mercantile element.

Nick knew a baker in the San Juan Islands in Washington state who stopped trying to give away day-old bagels because nobody would take them; he put up a sign saying people could take what they wanted for a dollar and they were gone in 90 minutes.

Jake Young, who has been living in the neighborhood 24 years, said having these folks around had been "a real moderating influence." Over the years, he has seen drug dealing, car thievery and vandalism in that parking lot, but there was none of that with these newcomers sleeping on the school buses and walking to the church to use the bathroom. He even let some of these visitors stay at his place, and it was the first time in all his years that he felt safe enough to leave his front door unlocked.

A baker's dozen from the buses worshiped at the church Sunday. Both groups had been in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, and both planned to drive about 180 miles southwest to Rock Creek, W.Va., where some are protesting mountaintop mining. What keeps them going?

Nick said, "Our base ethic is that you have to be willing to work with people unlike yourself. That's good for you."