One night in April 1985, Mark Singleton and two friends walked into the kitchen at the Hoboken Shelter with their own recipe for feeding the hungry.
The meal that Singleton, Eddie Lopez and Declan Carney cooked for the homeless that night – chicken, rice, and salad – became a Wednesday night tradition and earned the trio the nickname The Chicken People.
Forty years later, The Chicken People is down to The Chicken Man, Singleton, who’s still cooking that same meal at the Hoboken Shelter on the second Wednesday of each month.
“We kind of did it on a whim,” Singleton, 63, recalls of the night 40 years ago when he and his mates called the shelter and asked if they could cook a meal. “I had two good friends, and one of them was a chef. We called the shelter, Sister Roberta answered the phone and said ‘Cmon down! How about Wednesday?’ And that’s how it started.”
Eddie Lopez, the chef, and Declan Carney, Singleton’s other friend, both left Hoboken years ago. Singleton, a realtor in town stayed, and kept cooking; the Chicken People in the kitchen today are his wife, Carol, and grown children, Emma and Aaron.
On a recent Wednesday, Hudson County Commissioner Anthony Romano visited the kitchen to read a proclamation honoring Singleton for his 40 years of cooking with heart.
“My mom taught me early that community was everything,” said Singleton, who was nine years old when he moved to Hoboken from Sussex County in 1970. He graduated Hoboken High School in 1979, then got a degree from Montclair State.
Mark Singleton serves chicken to Dashawn Gordon as a volunteer at the Hoboken Shelter where he celebrates his 40 years of cooking dinner for homeless people. Singleton is member of a group of volunteers known as The Chicken People. He’s been cooking dinner every second Wednesday of the month for the past 40 years. in Hoboken, NJ, on Wednesday, April 9, 2025.Ed Murray| For NJ Advance Media
By the mid-1980s, once gritty Hoboken was rapidly gentrifying, while much of Hudson County was becoming the Gold Coast. People who lived paycheck to paycheck were getting kicked to the curb.
“That first night, we were putting out the food and the other side of the bread line were people I knew from high school,” Singleton said. “Lots of people are one bad break from being homeless.”
So Singleton kept coming back, even as his other friends dropped out. He rarely misses a second Wednesday, and when he can’t make it, he substitutes a date to make his Shelter Chicken.
Singleton buys the food and cooks it himself, assisted by volunteers, including his wife and two kids. He bakes the drumsticks, boils sacks of yellow rice and simmers the vegetable medley to make the Shelter Chicken. “I make it at home, too,” he said.
Singleton has fed thousands over the years. He’s seen familiar faces and strangers he got to know. He’s seen doctors and lawyers on the food line, and plenty of blue-collar people.
“The message I got in 1985 is the same message now,” he said. “These people aren’t any different than me or you. They’ve had some bad situations and some bad breaks.”
Hudson County Commissioner Anthony Romano presents a resolution to Mark Singleton a volunteer at the Hoboken Shelter, celebrates his 40 years of cooking dinner for homeless people. Singleton is member of a group of volunteers known as The Chicken People. He’s been cooking dinner every second Wednesday of the month for the past 40 years. in Hoboken, NJ, on Wednesday, April 9, 2025.Ed Murray| For NJ Advance Media
Executive director Jacklyn Cherubini said Singleton is the longest-tenured volunteer at the shelter, which opened in 1983 and is run by four churches and a synagogue.
Over 1,900 volunteers donated time to serve meals in 2024, according to shelter statistics. The shelter currently serves 500 meals a day – breakfast, lunch, and dinner – and sleeps 50 people a night.
“People who volunteer just four hours are making a difference in someone else’s life,” Cherubini said. “Mark kept coming back. He hasn’t missed a month in 40 years.”
Cherubini said the shelter’s goal is to treat everyone with dignity, whether they come in for meals, to shower, or to sleep. The people who come in off the street are referred to as “guests,” and last year, the shelter found permanent housing for 157 people.
“That’s three people a week,” Cherubini said proudly. “Every other day, someone left here with keys in their hands for their own home.”
Cherubini said the shelter volunteers see people on what for many is the “worst day of their lives”— the day they become homeless. She said the road to recovery often starts with a meal.
“If we had to hire staff to serve meals and take care of a lot of things that volunteers do, then I don’t think we’d be able to afford it,” said Azy Brown, the shelter president. “It’s crucial that volunteers donate their time, and it’s really important for our guests to see there’s someone in the community that cares about them.”
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