Sometimes you need to feed the soul. And sometimes feeding others salads of local greens and fresh tomatoes, maybe spinach-squash lasagna and chocolate-peanut butter pie does just that, especially for the cook. Just ask chef Mary Ellen Diaz whose desire to give back led her to create First Slice, a self-funded charity to feed the needy and homeless, more than a decade ago.

Diaz, who grew up in Virginia with mom, dad, four sisters and a brother, had trained in France (including at l’Ecole des Arts Culinaires in Lyon) and worked at multistarred restaurants (North Pond, Printer’s Row), and with Richard Melman at Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises.

She was on a leave of absence from Lettuce (after she and her partner adopted their second child) when she began volunteering at soup kitchens, stirring her culinary experience into the meals. “It only took one night of making meals amazing for people in need and seeing the smiles that made me realize I could do something here,” Diaz said.

How would she fund her dream? The stay-at-home mom knew she struggled to get family meals on the table. There had to be others. She took skills learned at Lettuce, seasoned it with research from her North Pond days and topped it with this: In the restaurants where she’d worked, “the first slice of pie was always served to our staff. … So this symbol of pie as community was important as was the first slice being the most important.”

First Slice today funds its efforts with a “shareholders program,” with some 100 subscriber families receiving home-cooked, restaurant-quality meals weekly. Funds from those subscriptions are used to make the same quality meals for people in need. Community volunteers, working with First Slice staff, serve often 300-plus needy and homeless each week through several social service organizations, such as Streetwise. And there are three cafes (North Ravenswood inside the Lillstreet Art Center, North Ashland Avenue, and Manor Street).

In the past several years, a small job training program has been added. “It’s not 12 people sitting around a table learning to saute a chicken breast. It’s a few people sauteeing hundreds of chicken breasts,” says Diaz. “We’ve always thought about our food as being a magnet for our services. If people know that there’s a great meal waiting for them at an organization, they are much more likely to come and get the services needed.”

And while there are donations, it’s not the major focus: “We all feel much more driven if our mission is based on us sort of rolling up our sleeves and cooking for every dollar,” she says, whether its for the subscription program or the cafes. “We find a lot of joy in that and that’s why we’re sort of a different organization. You can come in and have good food, and other people can have good food too.”