Stone Soup Kitchen Ministries

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings at Living Water Fellowship in Devenscrest, Ayer. It 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, do puzzles, or play games in the dining room. The potluck dinner is available from 5 to 5:30 followed by dessert and our support group. The open support group meeting with Teri T runs from 5:30 to 6, if you'd like to stay for it after dinner. This week, the potluck will feature pulled pork, various sides, dessert, juice, and some extra snacks to take home for the weekend.  Our food pantry is open every Saturday morning from 10 to noon, same location. If you need food, or KNOW someone who needs food...please come pick some up. Email any questions to stonesoupkitchenministries @ gmail . com (remove the spaces).   ANYone is welcome...no questions asked. No registration, residency, i

Let's end the stigma and support the change!  Thursday May 4 at 6:00pm. Stone Soup Kitchen, 41 Littleton Road in Ayer MA This is an open presentation for everyone, whether you are having challenges with addiction, or you love someone else who is. Tara Rivera will be covering both the biological and the psychological roots of addiction, and there will be time afterwards for more private discussions if you need resource suggestions. 

I hear (and more often overhear) the same things about food pantries and public potlucks as expressed in this quote from Rough Sleepers .  Heavy sigh.  Not from the majority of people, fortunately.  There should be no us and them...most of us are only one disaster away from needing help.  Please remember the saying, "There but for the grace of God go I."     Over the years [Doctor] Jim had heard, and more often overheard, objections to the Program's expanding practice: Many people who worked and paid taxes struggled to pay for health insurance.  Why should their money go to providing what some would consider concierge medicine for these people who lived at public expense?  For people who produced nothing except indecent public spectacles, and didn't even try to take care of themselves....What was the alternative?  Ignore chronically homeless people, as the city used to do, or imitate draconian regimes and imprison all rough sleepers in a stadium?   In fact, the Progra

Everyone had an amazing time! Not all of us are quite ready to get hired by the local bakery, but we had so much fun 💕  Thank you to Karen B and to all the participants...we formed some new friendships on Saturday, and sealed them with frosting.

Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings at Living Water Fellowship in Devenscrest, Ayer.  It 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, do puzzles, or play games in the dining room.  The potluck dinner is available from 5 to 5:30 followed by dessert and our support group.  The open support group meeting with Teri T runs from 5:30 to 6, if you'd like to stay for it after dinner.  This week, the potluck will feature French onion chicken, various sides, dessert, juice, and some extra snacks to take home for the weekend.     Our food pantry is open every Saturday morning from 10 to noon, same location. If you need food, or KNOW someone who needs food...please come pick some up. Email any questions to stonesoupkitchenministries @ gmail . com (remove the spaces) or leave us a private message on our facebook page. ANYone is

Look what our friends at Nashoba Park did for our community!  We send out our thanks to the residents, staff, families, and friends who donated to their Spring food drive for Stone Soup Kitchen 💕 Image via Nashoba Park

Never think that your "small" donation makes no difference.  Every ocean is made up of drops of water.  Every avalanche is made up of flakes of snow.  Every desert is made up of grains of sand.   You get the idea! We love you all and are grateful for every single one of you 💕 If you want to help Image: Cyndi Lavin, Truro beach in January

In the brilliant novel Men At Arms (1993) by Terry Pratchett, my favorite character Sam Vines muses about why the rich are so rich and why the poor stayed so poor.  It came down to one simple fact: the rich spend less money.    "Take boots, for example. He earned $38 a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost $50. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about $10. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford $50 had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in 10 years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet." Next

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings at Living Water Fellowship in Devenscrest, Ayer.  It 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, do puzzles, or play games in the dining room.  The potluck dinner is available from 5 to 5:30 followed by dessert and our support group.  The open support group meeting with Teri T runs from 5:30 to 6, if you'd like to stay for it after dinner.  This week, the potluck will feature meatloaf, various sides, dessert, juice, and some extra snacks to take home for the weekend.     Our food pantry is open every Saturday morning from 10 to noon, same location. If you need food, or KNOW someone who needs food...please come pick some up. Email any questions to stonesoupkitchenministries @ gmail . com (remove the spaces) or leave us a private message on our facebook page. ANYone is welcome...

  BECAUSE Jesus knew that all power had been granted to Him, He washed His disciples' feet  (John 13:3-5) This is what we do while we're waiting for the world to change: We serve those who need help.  We don't judge them.  We don't badger them for information and make them register for help.  We don't discuss whether it's "their own fault" that they're in their current circumstances.  We strive to realize that "there but for the grace of God go I".    Image:  Rev Ben Cremer

Miss Amy from the Ayer Library came to do Storytime with us today! She brought Pete the Cat and some fun crafts too ❤️  Put these dates on your calendar now so you don't miss the next one on June 6. 

Every Monday morning, I send out an email to let everyone know what's going on: what events are coming up, pictures from ones that just passed, and what our needs are for the pantry or for volunteers.  There is never any obligation, and it is mailed bcc of course, for your privacy!  If you're not receiving this newsletter and would like to, just comment here on this post with your email address.  All comments are moderated, so your info will be kept private.  

We had our Crafts Gathering on Saturday morning, led by our friends Debbie E and Melanie P. Most folks worked on coloring, rock and flower painting, and chatting :-) It was a lovely and relaxing time for everyone. I can't wait to see what they do next month...put it on your calendar now so you don't miss out. The second Saturday of every month 💕

Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings at Living Water Fellowship in Devenscrest, Ayer.  It 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, do puzzles, or play games in the dining room.  The potluck dinner is available from 5 to 5:30 followed by dessert and our support group.  The open support group meeting with Teri T runs from 5:30 to 6, if you'd like to stay for it after dinner.  This week, the potluck will feature smoked ham from our local Blood Farm, various sides, dessert, juice, and some extra snacks to take home for the weekend.     Our food pantry is open every Saturday morning from 10 to noon, same location. If you need food, or KNOW someone who needs food...please come pick some up. Email any questions to stonesoupkitchenministries @ gmail . com (remove the spaces) or leave us a private message on our facebook

  We have an exciting opportunity for our community!  Karen B has graciously offered to teach a workshop on using frosting bags with different tips to beautifully and easily decorate cakes, cookies, cupcakes, your little brother... There is no fee for this workshop.  All tools and supplies will be provided, and the best part is that you will get to keep the decorating kit that we've assembled for you!  Space is limited, as are the number of kits available, so please sign up as soon as possible.  This is one of the few times that we have to require a "reservation"! Leave a comment here to register (it will not be published) or email stonesoupkitchenministries at gmail dot com Stone Soup Kitchen is located at 41 Littleton Road in Ayer MA

Our friends at Nashoba Park are going to be holding a food drive for us in April!  Thank you so much to them for all their kindness!

Come for the stories...stay for the fun!  We are so excited to have Miss Amy from the Ayer Library come to visit us on Tuesday April 11 at 10am to lead us in songs and stories and crafts! No registration is required at this free event. A snack will be provided along with coffee and juice.  Stone Soup Kitchen, 41 Littleton Road in Ayer

For anyone who is interested in the issues surrounding homelessness, I recommend Tracy Kidder's book Rough Sleepers , published in 2023 by Random House.  It details Dr. Jim O'Connell's journey to bring healing to homeless people in Boston, and is full of heartbreaking stories, uplifting experiences, and hard-core data in equal measure.  I found the vocabulary they established for speaking about the status of their patients to be very helpful:   "Homelessness had a complex taxonomy.  It included families and also many lone individuals, generally divided into four categories.  There were the "hidden," such as the Street Team patient who slept in a rented storage locker.  The "transitional," by far the most numerous, fell into homelessness only briefly, while the "episodic" did so a few times a year.  A smaller number--about 10 percent in 2018--belonged to the "chronic" category, living in constant or near-constant homelessness.  Th

  We are so blessed to be able to present again this year a very important seminar by Tara Rivera, Treatment Advocate.  Tara leads a conversation about addiction, which includes both the physical and the emotional/social aspects of the disease.  Once we understand what addiction is all about, then we can finally work more effectively towards treatment and prevention.  This seminar is for both people struggling with addiction in any form and for those who love them.     Please join us for a very special evening with Tara on Thursday May 4, 2023 at 6:00pm.  The seminar will be held at Stone Soup Kitchen, 41 Littleton Road in Ayer MA.  No registration is required, and your privacy will be respected with no photos being taken.  Refreshments will be served afterwards for those who would like to talk a bit more with Tara.  Please email stonesoupkitchenministries at gmail dot com for more information.