Stone Soup Kitchen Ministries

Good morning! I will be traveling next Monday, so there will be no letter next week. Mike is having his [mumble-mumble-eth]  high school reunion, and I have bravely promised to go with him :-) I'm going to do something different from the usual today. I'm going to rant. I was extremely angered by a meme that I saw making the rounds last week, and it was just too insulting to ignore. Lots of things online these days are insulting and irritating, but this one was actually in our wheelhouse here at Stone Soup Kitchen, so I felt I had to respond. Here is the offending meme, with my photoshopped red letters over it: It begins with misinformation. SNAP was distributed to a little over 42 million people last year, about 12.3% of the population. That's about 22.4 million households. 79% of them include one or more children, an elderly person, or a person with a disability. I'm not angry about that misinformation, because after all, 42 million people is still...

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings, located in Shepherd of the Valley Church on Washington Street in Ayer. **For Friday dinner, you must park in the lot off of Newton St and walk up to the first blue door unless you are disabled** For the Saturday food pantry, please come to the parking lot on Cambridge St. It is open from 10 to noon. * * * * * Dinner is open to ANYone who wants a good hot meal and some company...no need to bring anything but yourself unless you want to! From 4 to 5, we are open for those who want to get together and socialize in the dining room. The potluck dinner is available from 5 to 5:30 followed by dessert and our open support group, which runs from 5:30 to 6, if you'd like to stay for it after dinner. Our potluck this week features chicken parmesan casserole with various sides, dessert, juice, coffee, and some extra snacks to take home for the weekend. Our food pantry is open every Saturday morning from 10 to noon, same...

  Good morning and Happy Labor Day! I've decided to take it to heart and take the day off  :-) Just One Small Thing before I go outside and play... I really love you all!

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings, located in Shepherd of the Valley Church on Washington Street in Ayer.   **For Friday dinner, you must park in the lot off of Newton St and walk up to the first blue door unless you are disabled**  For the Saturday food pantry, please come to the parking lot on Cambridge St. It is open from 10 to noon. * * * * * Dinner is open to ANYone who wants a good hot meal and some company...no need to bring anything but yourself unless you want to! From 4 to 5, we are open for those who want to get together and socialize in the dining room. The potluck dinner is available from 5 to 5:30 followed by dessert and our open support group, which runs from 5:30 to 6, if you'd like to stay for it after dinner. Our potluck this week features grilled sausage with various sides, dessert, juice, coffee, and some extra snacks to take home for the weekend. Our food pantry is open every Saturday morning from 10 to noon, same loca...

  We are incredibly grateful to our local Ayer Police Station, along with the Shirley Police Station and the Rotary Club for kickstarting our month-long food drive. I don't have a final total yet, because there is technically one more day left, but I will estimate that we received around 140 grocery bags full of food, through the generosity of our community of big-hearted donors, along with those organizations I listed and the Shop n' Save grocery store. Thank you thank you thank you to all of you who helped us get ready for the fall! And just like that, the kids are back in school and August is over. Garden season is not over yet though...not by a longshot...and Rachel K is busy gleaning around town where people call her for help. Don't miss the story in One Small Thing below! Other things that are not over include all of the tasks that are done for the sake of our community each and every week of the year: Pauline picks up bread. Nicole, Rich, and Alison pick ...

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings, located in Shepherd of the Valley Church on Washington Street in Ayer. **For Friday dinner, you must park in the lot off of Newton St and walk up to the first blue door unless you are disabled** For the Saturday food pantry, please come to the parking lot on Cambridge St. It is open from 10 to noon. * * * * * Dinner is open to ANYone who wants a good hot meal and some company...no need to bring anything but yourself unless you want to! From 4 to 5, we are open for those who want to get together and socialize in the dining room. The potluck dinner is available from 5 to 5:30 followed by dessert and our open support group, which runs from 5:30 to 6, if you'd like to stay for it after dinner. Our potluck this week features spaghetti casserole with various sides, dessert, juice, coffee, and some extra snacks to take home for the weekend. Our food pantry is open every Saturday morning from 10 to noon, same location. Come to...

  Good morning! Did you see our pictures from Cops and Cones ? It was the most perfect summer evening, and we had such a good time. I hope that even more of you will be able to join us when we do this again next year. Clara and Chloe were our marvelous scoopers from West Side Creamery, and they are hoping for another invitation!  If you want to get ready for the next event, put it on your calendar now! Tuesday October 6, 5-6pm at Pirone Park, we will be hosting Franks and Firefighters . The Ayer Fire Department will be holding their SAFE program and Touch-a-Truck for kids of all ages (really, honestly...ALL ages!), and we will have a hot dog truck there. On a different note, my friend Heidi sent us information about a program for free workforce training if you know anyone who would be interested. Free workforce training programs are being offered this fall online through MWCC. To be eligible for the free training, students must be over 18 years of age, have a hi...