‘Survivor’ host serves homeless at soup kitchen

updated 10:41 p.m. ET Jan. 7, 2007

PORTLAND, Maine - “Survivor” host Jeff Probst and his girlfriend, former contestant Julie Berry, served Christmas dinner at a soup kitchen and were spotted the following day shopping at a Target store.

Probst said the experience of volunteering to serve meals at the Wayside Soup Kitchen was a chance to bring some perspective to the “frantic” holiday season. “It’s a chance to remember how fortunate you are,” he said Tuesday.

He made the comments as he and Berry shopped at Target in South Portland, where they mingled with customers and posed for pictures.

“We keep running into friends of hers every other aisle,” Probst said. The couple spent the holiday with Berry’s family in Gorham.

Probst, 45, is taking a break after filming the upcoming season of CBS Corp.’s “Survivor.” Crew members get a few months off after shooting two seasons back-to-back, he said.

The finale of “Survivor: Cook Islands” aired earlier this month. The next season, filmed in Fiji, begins in February.

Berry was a contestant on “Survivor: Vanuatu — Islands of Fire,” which aired in 2004. The couple didn’t start dating until after the show was over, Probst has said.

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