Stone Soup Kitchen Ministries

  Good morning! We had another very busy weekend with our dinner and the pantry, but fortunately we also had the food and the people-power to take care of it. Our wonderful volunteers and donors made sure that we got all the produce, bread, pantry staples, and meat that we needed. Generous individuals, along with the food bank, the non-profit farm and orchard, and local companies like Bake'N Joy (thank you Justin!) and Catania Oils helped to make sure everyone who came will have food on their tables. Thank you to everyone who helps out, from the packers and the bakers to the servers and the drivers and donors. Every step is beautiful and so appreciated! * * * * *  One Small Thing Just a reminder that this is a new feature! Send me your “small” things...they can be shared anonymously if you wish. Our friend Nancy D told me about one small thing she does with great love. This summer, she is cleaning all the Veterans' stones at the Townsend cemeteries * * * * * ...

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings, located at Shepherd of the Valley Church on Washington Street in Ayer. **Please park in the Newton Street lot and walk up to the first blue door on Washington Street.** Dinner 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 in the dining room. The potluck dinner is available from 5 to 5:30 followed by dessert and our open support group, which runs from 5:30 to 6, if you'd like to stay for it after dinner. This week, the potluck will feature bacon-wrapped brown sugar chicken with various sides, dessert, juice, coffee, and some extra snacks to take home for the weekend. Our food pantry is open every Saturday morning from 10 to noon, same location. Come to the parking lot on Cambridge Street and follow the arrows. If you need food, or KNOW someone who needs food...please co...

Excerpt from MIT's Spectrum magazine “I grew up in India and thus had a personal connection to the subject of poverty,” Mullainathan says. That motivated him to find out “why poor people are poor, and the more I looked into it, the more I recognized that the circumstances of poverty create their own unique psychologies.” These can extend far beyond the lack of money, he explains, as poverty casts what he calls a “mental footprint” that can affect practically every facet of life. Lack of sound nutrition and sleep, for instance, can impair one’s cognitive abilities, leading to poor decision-making and poor parenting—factors that can make poverty self-perpetuating. Mullainathan presented these ideas in a 2013 book, Scarcity: Why Having So Little Means So Much (Times Books), written with psychologist Eldar Shafir. 

  Well, July is speeding by! I hope you've had lots of chances to enjoy the longer light and to maybe even get away for some rest and re-set. Speaking of light, I had a discussion with a friend last week about doing just one small thing, and I started thinking about the phrase “light a single candle.” It may not feel like much to us when we do one small thing, but to the person we're helping, if may be exactly what they needed to help cut through the darkness. So we're going to start a new segment in this newsletter, called One Small Thing . Please send me your small things that you do, and we'll share them here. It can be anonymous if you want. My friend Kimberly shared this One Small Thing : I do try to keep a grocery gift card with me when I am out or about in the city. I alone cannot solve everything, but I can leave a grocery gift card outside of someone's tent or on the park bench that they are sleeping on. Often I leave the card while the fo...

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings, located at Shepherd of the Valley Church on Washington Street in Ayer.  ***Please park in the Newton Street lot and walk up to the first blue door on Washington Street.*** Dinner 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 in the dining room. The potluck dinner is available from 5 to 5:30 followed by dessert and our open support group, which runs from 5:30 to 6, if you'd like to stay for it after dinner. This week, the potluck will feature chicken salad with various sides, dessert, juice, coffee, and some extra snacks to take home for the weekend. Our food pantry is open every Saturday morning from 10 to noon, same location. Come to the parking lot on Cambridge Street and follow the arrows. If you need food, or KNOW someone who needs food...please come pick so...

  A beautiful good morning to you all. I hear that we will be entering another heat wave starting tomorrow through Friday, so I hope everyone will be able to enjoy the outdoors sometime today. Excess heat is just as hard on our unhoused neighbors as excess cold, so we hope we won't have too many more of these spells this summer. For a summer that got started a bit late, it certainly has been trying to make up for it! We were very blessed to have our friend Lyna come visit us on Friday and get us snipped up for the summer. Lyna does great haircuts and has been a wonderful supporter for many years. I've included a picture of her in action. Thank you, Lyna! I mentioned last week that we were going to be starting with regular distribution of produce from the Boston Area Gleaners' farm. Between the Merrimack Valley Food Bank, regular private donors, Ayer Shop 'n Save, and the Gleaners, we had produce bags that were bursting with fresh goodness! I've included...

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings, located at Shepherd of the Valley Church on Washington Street in Ayer. Please park in the Newton Street lot and walk up to the first blue door on Washington Street. Dinner 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 in the dining room. The potluck dinner is available from 5 to 5:30 followed by dessert and our open support group, which 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, coffee, and some extra snacks to take home for the weekend. Our food pantry is open every Saturday morning from 10 to noon, same location. Come to the parking lot on Cambridge Street and follow the arrows. If you need food, or KNOW someone who needs food...please come pick some up. Email a...

  Good morning everyone, and happy July! I hope you were able to enjoy Friday the 4th and Saturday, before the heat came roaring back. For those of you who love the heat, all I can say is that I'm jealous :-) I can't stand the heat, never have been able to, but I'm still happy for all of you who love the Summer. It's such a short season here in New England. We had a wonderful dinner together on the 4th. One of our regular dinner friends had her birthday, so we celebrated with brownies and ice cream sandwiches (thank you, Ginger and Alison!). We had a smorgasbord of dinner offerings, including lasagna, ravioli alfredo, hamburgers, green beans, and salad. It was fun to help ourselves to a little of everything. Saturday was not as busy as usual, and I'm thinking that some folks might have assumed we were closed due to the holiday. It was ok though, because it allowed us to practice setting up the Coffee Bar again (thank you Brian!). We also had time ...

  Stone Soup Kitchen opens at 4 pm on Friday evenings, located at Shepherd of the Valley Church on Washington Street in Ayer. Please park in the Newton Street lot and walk up to the first blue door on Washington Street. Dinner 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 in the dining room. The potluck dinner is available from 5 to 5:30 followed by dessert and our open support group, which runs from 5:30 to 6, if you'd like to stay for it after dinner. This week, the potluck will feature many different dishes, dessert, juice, coffee, and some extra snacks to take home for the weekend. Our food pantry is open every Saturday morning from 10 to noon, same location. Come to the parking lot on Cambridge Street and follow the arrows. If you need food, or KNOW someone who needs food...please come pick some up. Email any question...

  We have a volunteer opportunity for people who like people...and coffee! We need a few more people to join our Coffee Bar team on Saturday mornings so that we can offer it more frequently. No qualifications needed other than being willing to spend some time and make a new friend. Leave us a private comment for more details if you're interested, and make sure you give us a way to get in touch with you...an email address!