Americorps worker Megan Moran puts soup in cups for the homeless at the BHS Family Services in Butler on Monday

AmeriCorps workers at Family Service Corps of Butler Memorial Hospital were hard at work Monday, but it might not be what you expect.

On a bitterly-cold Martin Luther King Jr. Day, about 10 people were chopping vegetables and cooking meat to produce on a short-term food security program that the corps does on this holiday every year.

Some years the program takes different forms — like a trip to the Grapevine Center to cook food and play games with clients, or delivering hot food to the county’s warming shelter — but the focus is always the same, said FSC coordinator Matt McConnell: food security.

Dubbed “Soup for the City,” this year’s program provided either a vegetable soup or chili to churches, service centers, and FSC clients who came to the center’s North Washington Street offices on Monday to receive services.

FSC program assistant Deb Moran said the group also was planning to go out to provide food for random people.

“We’re just going to kind of canvas, knock on doors, and look for people in need of a hot meal,” Moran said.

The center’s kitchen doesn’t have a working stove, so the group brought in four, 22-quart roasters to help them cook the food, Moran said. She wasn’t sure exactly how much soup and chili team members were going to end up making.

The soup-making effort is part of the corps’ required service on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as part of its funding by AmeriCorps.