July 29, 2024 newsletter

 

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), and the picnic table next to the coffee table so that folks could hang out a bit if they wanted to. We'll see how it goes.

On Friday, I got a message that one of my friends who is homeless needed a new backpack. His had gotten ripped. Friday is an extremely busy day for me because of the dinner, but I figured what could it hurt to just quickly post it on facebook and see what happened. Within three minutes, we had a backpack. Two minutes later there was another offer. And five minutes after that, there were two more offers to buy him one. Since he can only use one, we are now all set, and I certainly went through the rest of the day with a warm feeling in my heart that wasn't coming just from the weather! Thank you to Heidi C and everyone else who offered.

There's more, but I think it has to wait until next week when I hopefully will have more details to share! In the meantime, if you are wanting to get involved in Stone Soup Kitchen, there are opportunities to help with the coffee, with food drives, with homemade cookies, with our weekly dinner together, or maybe with other things that you can think of. I'd also like to gather up some encouragement cards to put in the pantry bags this fall. We haven't done that for a while, so if any of these things interest you, hit me up!

If you can shop for us this week, we would be grateful for anything from our complete list. There will be a grocery cart in the lobby of the Ayer Police Station for your drop-offs, as well as at Shop n' Save, and as always, you are invited to leave a note in your bags so that we know whom to thank. 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 too. Thank you all so much for your support and for your love for our community!

Love you all ~ 

Cyndi