January 6, 2025 newsletter

Good morning friends! Did you catch that subject line? We are moving in 15 days to Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church at 21 Washington Street in Ayer (formerly the Federated Church, which is still on the sign), and we need some help with packing and unpacking. Monday, January 20th is the day that the movers come, and there is so much to do before then, and then again afterwards. That date was picked because SOV also houses the Ayer Community School, and we wanted to make sure that we weren't any more disruptive to them than absolutely necessary. January 20 is MLK Day, a federal holiday, so the school will be closed. Can you imagine trying to corral a group of preschoolers when there is a moving van outside their window? 😄

The short length of time that we were given to vacate Living Water Fellowship (which is being closed down against the will of the parishioners) is making this an extremely hectic time, and we need your help. There are many things that simply cannot be packed until the week before the move if we don't want to disrupt our service for more than a week. Our plan is not to skip ANY Friday dinners, and to be closed only one Saturday pantry day. So here is the schedule, taken straight from my notebook that tells me when to breathe. If you can help at any of these times, feel free to just show up, or contact the appropriate person if you want to be sure what's going on. You can come for whatever portion of the times listed that you're available.

Clean out of Shepherd of the Valley to make space for us 

Contact Kathleen at koconnor20 @ yahoo.com (remove the spaces)
Saturday, January 11 from 1:30 – 4:30pm
Sunday, January 12 from 1:30 – 4:30pm
Saturday, January 18 from 1:30 – 4:30pm
Sunday, January 19 from 1:30 – 4:30pm

Packing up at Living Water Fellowship 

Leave comment here or PM Cyndi on facebook
Wednesday, January 15 from 10am to 5pm
Thursday, January 16 from 10am – 5pm

Unpacking at Shepherd of the Valley

Contact Cyndi, same as above)
Wednesday, January 22 from 10am – 5pm
Thursday, January 23 from 10am – 5pm
Saturday, January 25 from 10am – 3pm

We hope to reopen the pantry on Saturday, February 1st. This is completely doable if we have enough help! In fact, this is also an opportunity for anyone who wants to get more involved with Stone Soup Kitchen in this new year. Because of the way the new location is set up, we will need additional people to help on Saturday mornings during pantry hours. If you have been thinking about helping out at the pantry, either for a season or permanently, this is the time to contact us about it!

Thank you all so much for your continued support, encouragement, and love, helping us to build up our community in relationships and food. Please don't buy anymore food donations for us until we resettle. We have a couple of people who can go get us what we need on an emergency basis if we run out of something and it's necessary, and the less we have to transport, the better. If you've already bought things, no worries...we'll take them! Monetary donations that you've made will allow us to restock quickly when we get to our new home, and then I will let you know what items we are low on each week, as I've done since the beginning.

I love you all, and happy new year!!