November 27, 2023 newsletter

 

Good morning all, and I truly hope you had a wonderful time last week, gathering with friends, family, or even with strangers! We had a fabulous gathering on Friday evening, where we enjoyed a turkey dinner together and shared things that we are grateful for. I am grateful for all of you, and I want to especially recognize one couple in this letter who have been so faithful twice a week, every week, since forever ago! That is Becky and Rick J, who cart all of the donations from the bin at Shop 'n Save to us every Wednesday and Saturday. It also doesn't hurt that they are upbeat people who love others! So thank you to you guys and Colleen for keeping those supply lines open and flowing! I also want to send a special thank you to my friend John E, who, with very little notice, jumped into action to help me collect the fruits of a local food drive last week. Just a little extra task to add to a busy week...thank you John! And thank you so much to SpringDell Farm for the bounty you collected for us

During this time when we celebrate our blessings, I've been thinking a lot about food insecurity and our entire food system, and about how Stone Soup Kitchen could possibly help impact the inequities built into it. Food insecurity is “tied to people's need for jobs that provide a living wage, access to transportation, high-quality education, and affordable health care. All of these things help to ensure that people have access to healthy food and that the negative effects of food insecurity are fully addressed.” (Report by AmericanProgress.org on best practices for creating a sustainable and equitable food system in the United States)

Acts of charity, like passing out food, are great and necessary, but they are treating symptoms, not causes. It's also necessary for someone to confront the system that keeps people in poverty and puts them in the position of being one pay-check away from disaster in the first place. Or one broken leg away from having the lights turned off. As a society, we need to work on both “upstream” and “downstream” solutions. “Downstream” includes providing food and friendship, which is what Stone Soup Kitchen concentrates on primarily. “Upstream” includes anything that helps people to better navigate the systems that exist and to improve their situation: for example, our workshops in cooking and food shopping, literacy, working with groups that distribute food that would otherwise go to waste, workshops on finance topics, including how to avoid scams, and all of our workshops on health topics and wellness visits. These are the things we have been doing, and/or are planning to do in 2024. “Upstream” also includes challenging the system that exists, and here I think we are coming up short.

Could we be doing more in this upstream direction, as Stone Soup Kitchen? I invite you to think through it with me and to offer any suggestions you may have. As a 501(c)3, we cannot be involved in politics or lobbying. However, there must be other ways that we could be leveraging our “power” and privilege for people who are marginalized by the systems of power. I will admit to you that I feel a bit stuck. I feel the pressure to leverage our name and all the connections we have made, but it cannot be in a way that distracts us from our two-fold mission statement:

 

Stone Soup Kitchen is a relational food and community-building ministry, which is community-funded. We work to alleviate food insecurity and hunger, while also bringing marginalized and lonely people together for food and friendship with other community members, helping them to form more relationships across the typical divides that keep people from socializing. Stone Soup Kitchen includes a food pantry, public potluck dinners, and many free activities that provide opportunities for people from all parts of the larger community to come together.

Will you think about this with me? If you have ideas, I want to hear them. If you'd like to get together for a conversation, we can do that, or have a phone call. Not every idea needs to be fully formed: sometimes a “crazy” idea can be morphed into one that's not so crazy! Sometimes an idea might be something that we can't do as Stone Soup Kitchen, but that I could share through this newsletter as a resource so that any of you who feel so inclined could follow up on it, like we did with information on how to support the people of Ukraine.

If you can shop for us this week, we still need more warm socks for grade school girls, low-sodium soups, in either the condensed or the “progresso” size, canned pasta, tuna, and anything else from our newly tweaked healthier list would also be gladly accepted, and thank you. We'll be at the pantry on Wednesday from 10 to noon, Friday from 4 to 5:30, and Saturday from 9 to noon for drop-offs. And the bin is always available at Shop n' Save if those times don't suit. Please leave a note in the bag with your name so we know whom to thank!

Have an amazing week, and thank you all for just being yourselves!