Volunteer Newsletter

Spring 2009 

Service is the rent we pay to live on this planet.  We have all warmed ourselves by fires we did not build.  And drunk from wells we did not dig.  We must now, dig more wells and build more fires. 

Nido Qubein

Volunteer Appreciation Event!

June 20, 2009

Saybrook Point Pavilion

3-5pm

Wine & Hors d’oeuvre

        Please spread the word to all:  those who volunteer so tirelessly to provide food and fellowship at our meal sites and pantries; those who volunteer so kindly at our garden and heat-n-eat sites; and those who volunteer to support the mission of SSKP.  Please RSVP by June 10, 2009 to Patty at her email address or at the Executive Directors Extension at 860-388-1988.
pdowling@shorelinesoupkitchens.org

A Heart Warming Story

Sue Alexander, Secretary - United Methodist Church of Clinton

A few days before Christmas two strangers came to our church office. Their names were John and Ryan and they brought four turkeys and two large hams for the Shoreline Soup Kitchens. When I asked how they acquired them all, they said, "We bought them." and when I asked why they had done this generous deed, John said "Because our stomachs are always full. Right, Ryan?" And Ryan nodded.

Did You Know?

There are over 76 million cases of food borne illness every year, and over 5,000 deaths. Washing your hands and then putting on gloves is one of the best ways you can help prevent an illness from happening.   Re-washing and changing gloves after each task can be just as critical. When cooking for others, we must always keep in mind that their immune systems might not be strong.

You Can Help Spread the Word!

Youth groups all over the world now celebrate the Souper Bowl of Caring on football’s Super Bowl Sunday.  February 1, 2009 was the twentieth anniversary of a movement begun by the youth of Spring Valley Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina.   Everything collected to combat hunger remains in the community in which it is received.  Many local faith groups have done this program every year and forwarded the collections on to us.  To read more about it and hopefully encourage your faiths group to get involved, please go to... 

www.souperbowl.org/

“It costs no more to dream a big dream than it does to dream a little dream.”

Anonymous

Did You Hear the News?

We Have A New Team!

Welcome to the new Stuff-A-Truck Team!

We have a wonderful new group of volunteers who fearlessly have been braving the weather and collecting donations at our local grocery stores. They have done an amazing job so far this year, and up to this printing have brought in over 3,000 pounds of food for our pantries!  Welcome and thank you Stuff-A-Truckers! 

Volunteers Are Special

 Recently Peter Hagberg responded to the Volunteer Appreciation Party with the following...

“I've gotten to know a lot of the people that attend these events.  I am very proud to be associated with your organization, even in such a lowly activity.  May God continue to bless this organization and all the volunteer participants.”  Thank you Peter for all you do.  This is your organization.  You are an integral piece of it.

      Peter is a member of St. Paul in Old Saybrook and he is the dishwasher/cleanup person at most of the church functions.  He insures that suitable leftovers go to Grace or the Congregational or St. Mark’s churches for one of our programs.  Peter also has soup kitchen duty monthly at the Old Lyme and Grace Church meal sites and provides garden seeds & supplies to our Grace Church garden.  Peter also provides vegetables to many.  Thank you Peter and all who volunteer!  You are the backbone of the SSKP! 
 

Volunteer Needed!

Drivers Needed

The Shoreline Soup Kitchen Garden needs drivers to pick up donations of produce from local farmers' markets on Tuesday and Saturday mornings and Thursday afternoons from June through October.  Drivers will deliver the donated produce to the garden behind Grace Episcopal Church, 336 Main St., Old Saybrook.  There is also a need for drivers to deliver garden produce to the Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday food pantries in Old Saybrook, Westbrook, East Lyme and Old Lyme.  If you would like to put together a team of volunteers to cover one or more of the produce deliveries or if you would like to participate individually, please e-mail Julie Peace at wpeace@snet.net or call 860 388-0305.

National Hunger Awareness Day

June 2, 2009 is National Hunger Awareness Day and Kevin Wilhelm, Executive Director of the Middlesex United Way, one of the generous funders of Shoreline Soup Kitchens is taking the Food stamp Challenge—read about his experience at http://mxunitedway.blogspot.com

Board of Trustees Profile

Claire K. Matthews,

       I came to the SSKP Board by way of the soup kitchen garden and a lifetime of wanting to do meaningful work.  After college I worked as a social worker focusing first on adoption and then on abused children.  After I married and had my own children, I choose to stay home for ten years to make sure they had a good start but I hardly stayed home.  There was so much good work to be done in the community I was compelled to find a way to do it and did so organizing my days around my children’s schedules and needs.

       When I finally returned to work, I remember thinking how much easier working was than juggling all the different things I was trying to do as a stay at home Mom and volunteer.  I started my career in the Financial Aid office of Wesleyan University, helping students and their families figure out how to afford high cost, high quality education.  I moved on to Admissions, Strategic Planning and finally to Development and Alumni Relations work at Connecticut College.  Throughout a twenty eight year career in higher education administration, a career I loved, I had the satisfaction of knowing that I was advancing the cause of creating good citizens of the world. 

       Staying in the non-profit world in the twilight of my career, I worked for five years in arts administration, first for the Wadsworth Athenaeum and then for the Mystic Arts Center.  These were broadening and stimulating years during which I was able to put a lifetime of learning into service on behalf of enriching people’s lives through the arts.

       When it came time to retire, it was natural for me to want to organize my life around familiar themes, so I choose areas of volunteer work that would use my talents and meet deeply felt commitments.  I have three general areas of interest: feeding the hungry, supporting literacy and engaging in political action. The soup kitchen garden was a natural for me. The fact that I love gardening, being in the out of doors in a beautiful place and working with generous, high spirited people makes working in that garden more pleasure than work.  But that is what retirement should be about, right?

       Since going on to the SSKP Board, I’ve chaired the Development Committee, served as Board Secretary, and on the Strategic Planning committee.  I went on the Board before the economic crisis hit, but now that more people need our food and our kindnesses, I feel that the need is even more urgent.  It is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to continue to do what I have always wanted to do, with people who share my hopes and dreams for a better world.     

"In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us." -- Flora Edwards

Do You Know a Carpenter?

The Clinton Pantry needs a new ramp!

       We are looking for a handy person who would generously donate their skills to building our pantry a new ramp.  We will provide the wood!  If you know someone, please ask them to call Lin at the Clinton extension.  Thank you!

A truly generous man is he that always gives, whether it be much or little, before he is asked.

- Orchot Tsadiqim

~ The Bridge Builder ~  

An old man going a long highway

Came at the evening, cold and gray,

To a chasm vast and wide and steep,

With water rolling cold and deep,

The old man crossed in the twilight dim

The sullen stream had no fears for him;

But he turned when safe on the other side,

And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,

“You are wasting your strength with building here.

Your journey will end with the ending day,

You never again will pass this way.

You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,

Why build you this bridge at eventide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head.

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,

“There followeth after me today

A youth whose feet must pass this way,

The chasm that was as nought to me

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;

He, too, must cross in twilight dim-

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”

Will Allen Dromgoole

A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.

- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Food For Thought

“Food for Thought” Is a column where volunteers can share their views on hunger and poverty. 

Tracking Self Sufficiency in Connecticut By Lawrence Morse

It is difficult to project the potential needs of the primary service areas of The Shoreline Soup Kitchens and Pantries due partly to the lag in reporting poverty percentages at individual municipality levels.

The primary source for data regarding poverty in the United States is the Census. The last Census was in 2000, due to begin again in 2010. Some higher level (state/region) statistics are reported in the in-between years through a joint venture of the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the form of a “Current Population Survey”(CPS). Using this data, we can at least begin to adjust our town forecasts by comparable percentage amounts to more accurately define the problems that families in our service area are likely having as they attempt to attain a measure of self sufficiency.

Poverty rates are at least partly a function of world events and U.S. politics. Fifty years ago, at the end of the Eisenhower administration, U.S. poverty was at around 18%. Significant reductions during the Johnson administration carried forward through the Nixon, Ford, and Carter years. Percentages increased during Reagan, and Bush1 and gradually trending down during the Clinton era and back up again during Bush2 to 9.8% at the end of 2007. Connecticut’s lowest poverty percentage (below 100% of FPL) was 2.9% in 1989 and at its highest (11.7%) in 1996, which coincides with the implementation of Clinton’s “Welfare to Work” agenda.

The most recent statistics at the state level; published by CPS for Connecticut are for the year 2007:

    % of people living  

below:  100%  of the Federal Poverty Level             =     8.9%

below:  150%                                                     =    15.2%

below:  200%        ( Self Sufficiency)                     =    21%

We have documented that family income needs to be at least twice the Federal Poverty Level in order to attain self sufficiency  --  and potentially closer to three times depending on circumstances.

CPS also annually measures regional (not by  town) poverty. Below 100% FPL follows:

                  2000                             2007                        Increase

U.S.                   11.3                                12.5                         11%

Northeast U.S.    10.3                                 11.4                         11%

Connecticut          7.7                                  8.9                          16%

At the county level:

Msx                     4.7                                5.2                           11%

New London         6.4                                 6.9                            8%

New Haven           8.8                                 9.5                            8%

However, none of these statistics adequately reflect the impact of our present economy which would include all of 2008 and 2009 to date. In speaking with the Data Integration Division of the U.S. Census Bureau, I am told that 2008 figures will not be available until August of 2009.

Most of the research sources for poverty and self sufficiency statistics at the town level use current population levels, but use obsolete poverty statistics from the last census in 2000. Using the numbers from the CPS annual supplement, we should probably assume that when interpreting 2000 to 2007 numbers, we should add about 10% to our estimates of potential client volume. That gets us to 2007.

 I think there may be some value in tracking the month by month unemployment numbers, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reflect major factors (like jobs!) affecting working families in Connecticut and their ability to be self sufficient. The Consumer Price Index might also be relevant. “Northeast Urban” CPI increased from 215.8 in January of 2007 to 226.7 in February of 2009; a 5% increase. At the same time, unemployment percentages in Connecticut moved from 4.5% in December of 2007 to 7.9% in January of 2009; a 75 % increase and the highest in the 10 years measured. Norwich/New London area reached 8.2%. Norwich/New London unemployment of 8.2 % translates to 12,419 people; up from 6,575 in December of 2007; an 88% increase over 14 months.

We have statistics from an Annie E. Casey Foundation sponsored study in 2007 showing that in Connecticut, of all families with income below 100% of Federal Poverty level, 41% (17,930) were working and 59% (26,245) unemployed.  Of all families with income below 200% of the Federal Poverty level, 66% (65,815) were working and 34% (33,710) unemployed.

From December, 2007 to February, 2009 we’ve seen a 75% increase in the percentage of people unemployed in Connecticut. Loss of those jobs potentially puts an additional 12,000 families below 100% of FPL and an additional 8,500 families below 200% FPL statewide.

Using the same rate of increase in our 11 town base population, without considering adjacent communities, could add over 1,300 families below 100% of FPL and another 1,500 families below 200% of FPL.

I conclude therefore, that conservatively, our current estimates of poverty and consequent absence of self sufficiency in our base should be increased by 10% to bring the numbers from 2000 to 2007 and then by another 25% to reflect the realities of our economy from December, 2007 through February, 2009. For planning purposes, we should also continue to track the unemployment statistics as reported by the Bureau of Labor. 

When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him, you shall love him as yourself,  for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your G-d.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)

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'I've done benefits for ALL religions. I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality.'

 Bob Hope