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Winter 2008 | |
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The Shoreline Soup Kitchens & Pantries Volunteer Newsletter Winter 2008
Charity
is equal in importance to all the other commandments combined. A Special Young Lady! For her 6th Birthday party, Grace Gibson of Clinton invited over 30 friends and family to help her celebrate. But, she asked for something very special. She asked that everyone bring groceries for people in need instead of presents. And, give they did! 287 pounds of food was brought to one of our pantries. Thank you, Grace! What an amazing gift of love for someone so young! SSKP Annual Meeting Wednesday January 14, 2009 6pm First Congregational Church 388 Main Street, Old Saybrook Hearty Soup Supper followed by a talk: “Closing the Gap Between wages and the Cost of Living’ by Lisa Sementilli, Research and Policy Director, PCSW RSVP by January 10, 2009 by calling 860.388.1988 or e-mailing: pdowing@shorelinesoupkitchens.org A Beautiful Letter Sent to the Old Lyme Pantry Dear Friends -On behalf of my family, I would like to say thank you. Thank you for taking time out of your schedule and life to help people like us have some food to feed our family. Thank you to all the people who prepare our breakfast, stock the shelves, help us when we don’t know where to go, etc. So many helpers, so much time. I just wanted all of you to know that I am thankful for everything and I am thankful that God has allowed me to be part of this and he is taking care of me and a lot of other people too!!!! Thank you Thank you Thank you, May God bless you as you all have done for us. Love, Volunteer Needed! Experience in Graphic Arts and committed to Shoreline Soup Kitchens. Please call Patty at 860-388-1988. To handle yourself, use your head. To handle others, use your heart. A Tough Winter Ahead! For over 19 years the SSKP has helped provide food for our families, friends and neighbors who are going through tough times. But the winter ahead of us may be the most challenging yet, both financially and emotionally. As I wrestle to find creative ways to help more of our community aware of the struggles that many are going through, I am reminded of Anna a young woman I met last spring. Anna grew up on the River-Shoreline area and moved to New Orleans with her husband Vic when he found work there. They made a life there and were beginning to raise their 2 small children when Katrina hit. They loved the city and were determined to rebuild their home and their lives. They struggled to do so until last spring when they couldn’t financially support themselves any longer. As Vic’s job was soon ending, Anna took the children and returned to Connecticut and moved in with her Mom in a small 1 bedroom apartment. Anna arrived in Connecticut full of hope only to discover her Mom was secretly battling cancer and was unable to cover her own medical expenses and bills. Anna also wasn’t feeling well and soon discovered she was expecting another baby. But, by early summer things were looking up. Mom was recovering. Vic had a job in Connecticut, and the family had their own apartment. We at the pantry were waiting for the familiar day when it was Anna’s turn to come to us in tears to say goodbye and thanks, but they wouldn’t need our help anymore. When the economy went south, so did Vic’s job. And it doesn’t look good for him to find another good job soon. It looks like there may be a lot more Anna and Vic’s this year and a lot less of the familiar “Good by and thanks but we’re okay now”. Please join me in digging deep into our hearts to be thankful for our own wonderfully full lives, and share extra of our spiritual and material blessings during these tough times. Lin Smith Food For Thought “Food for Thought” Is a column where volunteers can share their views on hunger and poverty. The following article is from Claudia Van Nes our “Gardener Extraordinaire” Tomatoes were our best crop this summer in the Shoreline Soup Kitchen’s vegetable garden – an accomplishment we attribute mainly to the removal of black walnut tree saplings on the north side of the garden. This horticultural cause and effect is worth highlighting not because it illustrates a gardening achievement but because it shows that generosity and dedication are the real tools that make the soup kitchen garden behind Grace Church in Old Saybrook a success. In previous years we assumed the wilt and other problems we experienced in some of our tomato plants were largely due to the mishmash of seedlings we planted. So, when Sam Riggio from Riggio’s Garden Center visited our garden and offered to grow disease resistant seedlings in a controlled environment, we were delighted. But though this improved our crop last year, we continued to have the wilt. A number of volunteers did research; Betty Palka took samples to the experiment station in New Haven; they were stumped so was UConn because indeed, Sam’s now towering tomato plants appeared disease free. The possibility of poisoning from the roots of the nearby black walnuts was suggested and as we gathered more information on this unfortunate relationship, we concluded the trees growing on the church property and on the land of next door neighbor Bill Marston could be the culprits. Too, these trees were shading a corner of the garden. The church gave the go-ahead for removal, yet another wonderful gesture from Grace Church but the cost was prohibitive. Bill Marsden, who is a garden volunteer, offered to take on the task and he with a crew cleared the entire tangle of weeds, vines and saplings on the far side of the garden, leaving the worthwhile trees but clearing out the black walnut. They weren’t specimen trees but they did render some worthy slabs. Some of those volunteers were enlisted men from the sub base in Groton. Their chaplain discovered our garden on the Shoreline Soup Kitchen web site and since then she has brought a crew of totally fit, young and enthused guys to work in our garden. They came twice this year saving the backs of our volunteers, most of who are on the far side of 55. Bill continues to work relentlessly to keep the area cleared which has resulted in far fewer weeds, much brighter sun, a great vista and this year, healthier tomatoes. We still had a few wilters this summer but that condition we found was the work of voles which have discovered the garden with a vengeance. Mark Lenhart, a new volunteer this year, took it upon himself to be the chief tier upper of tomato vines and did the job, with help from others, so vigilantly, we had far less tomatoes hitting the ground and rotting. And, we had far more tomatoes to take to the pantries and with the basil we grew for the first time, the soup kitchen consumers had a tasty treat they usually have to do without. Claudia Van Nes
At
a time when the community is in need, one should not say, "I will go
home and peace be to you," but rather one should participate in the
alleviating the community's trouble. Pantry Profile Clinton Pantry Holy Advent Episcopal Church 61 East Main Street Clinton, CT. Wednesdays 6pm – 7 pm Manager – Lin Smith The Clinton pantry is the newest member of the SSKP pantry family having opened our doors a little over 5 years ago. We have grown from an average of 30 families per week in the first year to approximately 80 families per week this year. We have a wide age range of volunteers from teens to seniors who work together. We have many devoted and caring volunteers who work hard to help our clients with dignity and respect. Many of our adult volunteers have been with us since the beginning and although the teens go on to college, some come back to visit and help when they are home for the holidays. The Clinton pantry permanently switched from Saturday morning distribution to Wednesday evening distribution last May. Since the Old Lyme pantry distributes on Saturday and therefore covers the weekend people, we felt an evening pantry was needed to help the daytime working people. The Holy Advent Church has been a wonderful support to our pantry, providing volunteers, donations, and of course the facilities. The faces of our clients change and often we wonder where someone has gone. But, sometimes a client will come up to us and say, “Thank you so much – I don’t know what I would have done without the pantries help, but I’m doing better now and won’t be coming back anymore”. That’s when we know we really are doing a great mission. *
If you want to raise a man from mud and filth, do not think it is enough
to keep standing on top and reaching down to him a helping hand.
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