Stone Soup Kitchen Ministries

Can you imagine being homeless and/or extremely low-income, and finding out that the wonderful neighborhood hospital you've relied on -- because you can walk there -- is closing thanks to the insatiable greed of a CEO and his investors?  Steward Health Care System's leader, Ralph de la Torre, sold the land right out from under the hospital (among other things) and the hospital is bankrupt.  And it's closing.  de la Torre is under federal investigation, and a subpoena has been issued, but whether or not he will comply or rather decide to sit smugly on the $40 million yacht he purchased with his bonuses as the Steward hospitals went bankrupt in non extraditable waters remains to be seen. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/steward-health-care-ceo-ralph-de-la-torre-senate-subpoena/ The nearby medical buildings where many of our favorite doctors, including primary care, cardiologists, endocrinologists, orthopedic surgeons, ophthalmologists, gynecologists, and many more has been spar...

  Good morning everyone! I have so many things to tell you about today that I don't even know where to start. Maybe I'll just tell you everything in reverse order. Let's start with...members of our community are extremely generous, and this has been such an encouragement to all of us at Stone Soup Kitchen. On Saturday, we launched a trial project. Several of us had noticed that many of the people waiting to be served would get out of their cars and visit with each other. Lin M and Debbie E collected the items needed for a coffee bar, and Lin set them up on Saturday to see how it would go. We quickly discovered that on a warm summer day, iced coffee was waaaaay more popular than hot! We look at this as another opportunity to help people create connections, at least during good weather. I've attached a picture to this letter. What you can't see in it are the cute signs that Lin made for designating the parking area (out of the way of the pantry line), an...

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings, located 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 Ginger Q runs from 5:30 to 6, if you'd like to stay for it after dinner. This week, the potluck will Swedish meatballs, 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 i...

  Hello and happy Monday everyone! What a wonderful weekend, with relief from the worst of the heat and humidity, but still hopefully enough warmth for you summer-lovers! We had a very busy weekend and will need to do a lot of regrouping and packing this week to make up for it. No new emergencies this week, unlike last, so we're grateful for that. We had a visit from our friends Olivia and Hannah from the Ayer office of National Grid last Wednesday. They helped us get everything ship shape in the kitchen and dining room, along with putting out new table top decorations. It looks so nice...thank you very much for your help! If your workplace is looking to partner with a local service organization like ours, please reach out. There are lots of creative things that we could do together. For example, we've noticed how people who are waiting in line for the pantry will often get out of their cars and visit with each other. Lin M got the brilliant idea to offer coffee ...

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings, located 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 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 ...

  Good morning everyone! We had a lot of emergencies to deal with this week, which made me even more aware of just how blessed all of us are who have a roof over our heads, food in the fridge, and a steady income. I'm sure most of you have heard about the fire in Ayer that left 4 apartments full of people homeless. As usual, our wonderful community is rising to the challenge and is working to help them recover. But I heard this remark: “Well, why didn't they have renter's insurance?” Yikes! I don't know about all of you, but when I was younger, struggling to put food on the table, and living in a small apartment, if I had any disposable income, it would have gone towards food or a larger apartment, not to renter's insurance. Very few people think about that, and I'm sure that most of us figure that the worst will never happen to us. We had many other needs that cropped up this week, and I think that most of them have been settled, or are in the hands...

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings, located 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 tomato pasta with 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 comment here. ANYon...

 Good morning all! Just a quick reminder that public buildings in our towns are just that: public. If you know people who need to get cooled down, they can stop in at our libraries, senior centers (over 60, I believe), town halls, or police/fire stations. Not all of these buildings are set up for hanging out all day, but they can certainly be visited to get some relief and find out other places that may be available. Please be on the lookout especially for people who are living in their cars or other hot spots. We had a good but busy week, and I've got a couple of things to tell you about today. The first is that one of our reading literacy volunteers has concluded her work as a tutor with her current learner! Instead of retiring from volunteering, she would like to help the next person. I will be putting it out to the community on social media, but I wanted to ask all of you first. Do you know someone who could use help getting up to speed on reading, improving their com...

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings, located 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 grilled burgers and dogs, homemade baked beans and potato salad, other 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 u...

  Good morning and happy July everyone! Rabbit Rabbit! (if you have no idea what that means, email me)   My husband and I had a wonderful vacation and reunion with his family last week, and I'm not at all shocked to hear that everything ran smoothly while I was gone. I'm so grateful that we had a full stable of volunteers who can take care of any issues that crop up and make sure that the food keeps rolling out the doors. We were extremely busy during Saturday pantry, but the Wednesday gang had made sure we'd be well-stocked and ready. Just in case you were wondering, we WILL be open on Wednesday for donations, and on Friday and Saturday as usual. It's a holiday weekend for many, but people still need to eat  💕 We have a new Donations Coordinator! Lin M, who is very involved with lots of different aspects of Stone Soup Kitchen, will be taking on this role, and I couldn't be happier! She will be approaching new potential partners at different businesses, c...