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 a pork roast along with 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 comment here. ANYone is welcome...n

  Heather P, from The Cannon Theater Good morning friends! Yes, I know I'm a day late, but I doubt that you would have read a letter from me yesterday anyway. I hope you are all going to be able to enjoy an extended holiday with family and friends this week, but if you are back to the grind, please know that you're not alone. We shared some wonderful times with our guests on Friday night and Saturday morning. I'm extra glad that we decided to be open on Saturday, because we had two first-time families come for help. That would have been devastating to learn that they found a closed and locked door. Thank you to all of you who donated this week (and all through the year) to make sure we had enough to give out. We had some special visits this week from local business friends and neighbors: AVS completed an amazing food drive and brought the food to us; Jessica B's Cub Scouts made adorable birthday bags for us to give out this coming year; Jennifer and Sharon f

  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 many dishes to sample and enjoy, along with 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 comment here. AN

  Thank you to all the awesome people at  The Cannon Theater !!

  We had a visit from our friends Stan and Megan yesterday. They were dropping off the amazing load of pantry staples that were collected by local business AVS ! We are extremely grateful to them for their generosity each year at this time 💕

We had a wonderful visit with our friends Jennifer and Sharon from Greater Lowell Community Foundation yesterday. They came to bring us holiday cheer and some much-needed advice too! We appreciate them so much! 💕 In the picture: packing crew members Kyndra and Sonja, GLCF angels Jennifer and Sharon, and crew member Melanie. Love them all!

  I've been rewatching Babylon 5 with my husband, and I had totally forgotten about this chilling political scene.  This particular season of B5 aired in 1995.

  Good morning everyone! We had an amazing week that I'd like to share with you. Very very busy, but it's also so satisfying to be able to get various families hooked up with the resources they need and to be able to give them the encouragement to take just the next step. And then just the next next step. And on and on, until hopefully they are in a better place. We live in an amazing community, and I want to remind all of you of that. Sometimes I get discouraged when I look at the posts and comments made in the online community groups, but I need to remind myself to just look harder. There are plenty of wonderful people out there, and I daresay they are in the majority. They just won't usually be the loudest voice in any room! Here are some specifics from last couple of weeks: The Cannon Theater – food drive and monetary donation Jess R + the Boston Area Gleaners + Rich + Alison E – farm fresh produce National Grid + Jacque + Olivia – repairs, packing, and

  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 sweet + sour pork with 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 comment here. ANYone is welcome...no q

The Rise in Homelessness "A severe recession in 1980 had inaugurated the era of rising homelessness.  But the problem was driven and sustained by many long-brewing problems: the shabby treatment of Vietnam veterans; the grossly inadequate provisions that had been made for mentally ill people since the nation began to close its psychiatric hospitals; the decline in jobs and wages for unskilled workers; the continuation of racist housing policies such as redlining and racially disproportionate evictions; the AIDS epidemic and the drug epidemics that fed it.  Also the arcana of applying for Social Security disability--a process so complex that anyone who could figure out how to get assistance probably didn't need it.   Many commentators and scholars have written that the Reagan administration fostered the rise in homelessness, with its deep cuts in programs for the poor and policies that led to declines in the supply of inexpensive housing.  Some responsibility for those cuts and

  Good morning friends! It seems like we did a LOT more than food this past week, and I'm so grateful that we have expert friends we can call on for advice when our guests need help. Here are the highlights of who we helped this week, besides the guests who came for food from the pantry: A family facing eviction A guest with no winter coat A family struggling to untangle a legal mess A guest in an unsafe living situation A guest with no heat or electricity People who just needed a place to gather First, I just need to let you know that not a cent of any monetary donations you make to us goes towards these other issues unless you have specifically designated it for a non-food project. These are not our primary mission, but of course we end up hearing about them as we help people with food insecurity and community involvement. We occasionally seek grants to cover expenses other than food, but primarily we just count on the advice and help of individuals, local business o

  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 creamy herbed chicken and rice with 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

If you don't have your own friend like Piglet, we are here for you. Every Friday from 4:00 to 6:00, you can join us for a social hour followed by dinner. Don't eat alone if you don't want to ❤️ ****** "Today was a Difficult Day," said Pooh. There was a pause. "Do you want to talk about it?" asked Piglet. "No," said Pooh after a bit. "No, I don't think I do." "That's okay," said Piglet, and he came and sat beside his friend. "What are you doing?" asked Pooh. "Nothing, really," said Piglet. "Only, I know what Difficult Days are like. I quite often don't feel like talking about it on my Difficult Days either. "But goodness," continued Piglet, "Difficult Days are so much easier when you know you've got someone there for you. And I'll always be here for you, Pooh." And as Pooh sat there, working through in his head his Difficult Day, while the solid, reliable Piglet

  Good morning friends! This was a heartbreaking week for us, but it was also a heartwarming one. On the one hand, we had first-time families visit us who are on the edge of despair over their current situations. We listened, walked them through their next steps using the resources that we have, and loaded them up with food. I am sorry that you don't all get to see this part of the process, because these encounters are where the hope resides and where people can start the journey of rebuilding and healing. It hurts a person's pride to have to come to us, and we do all we can to make it easier, but it also hurts us to see the tears and the shame that people feel. Empathy calls for us to feel their pain, but not to stay there for too long. We need to be practical, and to help them rise above it as best we can. So on the other hand, it was a heartwarming week. We received requests from our supporters who want to make sure that the families we serve are taken care

  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 meat loaf with 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 comment here. ANYone is welcome...no questions