Free State High School junior Sam Nitcher has been flipping burgers this summer, but not at the traditional fast-food job.

Nitcher, 16, was one of about a dozen local high school students who teamed up to serve a free barbecue dinner Monday night outside the Lawrence Community Shelter, 944 Ky. Roughly 100 people showed up to feast on ribs, hamburgers, chicken, potato salad and desserts.

“I thought it would be good to do, just to help out,” Nitcher said as he worked a charcoal grill with fellow Free State students Emma Hoyle and Emily Edwards.

The barbecue was in part the idea of shelter volunteer Carol Pilant, a former librarian at Central Junior High School. Pilant said that a few months ago she asked the shelter’s director, Loring Henderson, if there was a way to get high-school students involved in community service.

Free State High School juniors, from left, Emma Hoyle, Sam Nitcher and Emily Edwards grill chicken wings for a barbecue at the Lawrence Community Shelter, 944 Ky. A group of Free State and Lawrence High School students helped with the barbecue Monday for about 100 people.

Henderson liked the idea of a barbecue.

“You want to do something that builds up self-esteem” he said. “To say, ‘We can have a picnic like anybody else can have a picnic, and have it be a friendly, safe spot.'”

Pilant called some former students and some neighbors, and the kids jumped right in by helping organize the event and by bringing brownies, potato salad and condiments.

“Kids are so willing to participate in these kinds of things,” she said. “They just need to be given an opportunity.”

The Salvation Army Shelter, 946 N.H., canceled its evening meal. Dianne Morgan, coordinator of the Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen, brought chicken wings and cooked ribs.

Walter Gator Scott, who isn’t homeless but uses some of the shelter’s services, described the crowd as “just a lot of friends.”

“Some are homeless, some aren’t,” he said. “Some are needy. Some are hungry. Some take advantage of things.”

• 6News video: Students throw barbecue for homeless (06-13-05)

Rick Chisholm, who said he splits his nights between the community shelter and the Salvation Army shelter, sat at a table eating a slab of ribs that took up half his plate.

“This turned out great,” he said.