Dear Valued Supporters

As the mornings grow chilly we are preparing for our busy season at the Claremont Soup Kitchen. The fall and winter are always a challenge for some of the people we serve, and this year has been an even more trying time than usual. The increased cost of food, gas and household utilities has created an urgent need for food assistance.

Over the past year we provided:

39,567 meals in the Soup Kitchen, including breakfast, lunch and dinner every weekday and dinner on the weekends

3776 monthly food boxes

12,961 meals as part of the Summer Feeding Program

We sometimes find that we are on the front line of more challenges than just food insecurity. To meet our customer’s broader needs we often have to utilize our relationships with other local organizations to help connect our guests to additional services.
As the mornings grow chilly we are preparing for our busy season at the Claremont Soup Kitchen. The fall and winter are always a challenge for some of the people we serve, and this year has been an even more trying time than usual. The increased cost of food, gas and household utilities has created an urgent need for food assistance.

Over the past year we provided:

39,567 meals in the Soup Kitchen, including breakfast, lunch and dinner every weekday and dinner on the weekends

3776 monthly food boxes

12,961 meals as part of the Summer Feeding Program

We sometimes find that we are on the front line of more challenges than just food insecurity. To meet our customer’s broader needs we often have to utilize our relationships with other local organizations to help connect our guests to additional services.
As the mornings grow chilly we are preparing for our busy season at the Claremont Soup Kitchen. The fall and winter are always a challenge for some of the people we serve, and this year has been an even more trying time than usual. The increased cost of food, gas and household utilities has created an urgent need for food assistance.

Over the past year we provided:

39,567 meals in the Soup Kitchen, including breakfast, lunch and dinner every weekday and dinner on the weekends

3776 monthly food boxes

12,961 meals as part of the Summer Feeding Program

We sometimes find that we are on the front line of more challenges than just food insecurity. To meet our customer’s broader needs we often have to utilize our relationships with other local organizations to help connect our guests to additional services.

MAKING A CONNECTION

Here is a story I want to share that shows the role the Claremont Soup Kitchen sometimes plays as the first contact point for people in desperate need of immediate help.

One morning I received a visit from a woman – I am going to call her Jen – who had not been seen at the Soup Kitchen for some time. A single mom of two growing boys, she asked whether she qualified for a monthly food box. After we went through the qualifications (she did qualify) I filled a box for her down in the pantry and then she and her boys went upstairs for a hot breakfast in the dining room.

I then began to see Jen here more and more, attending most of our meal services. After one of the CSK team members had a chat with her, we found out that Jen was coming for meals again because she had no electricity, so she could not keep refrigerated food in her home and had no way to cook.

This new information enabled us to activate the network of organizations that we are fortunate to have in Claremont. We find that we are often the first point of contact for people with sudden and severe needs, since food is such a core and immediate need. So as a first step I made a call to a fellow organization asking how we could work to help Jen.

Together we decided to set up a meeting with Jen to assist with her most immediate needs but even that was difficult because, in addition to all her other challenges, she also had no phone.

Ultimately I was able to catch up with Jen at one of the distribution points for our children’s summer feeding program, which she was utilizing daily. I carefully engaged her in a conversation, and then told her we wanted to help. Her eyes filled with tears as she confided that her electricity had been turned off for weeks and she was trying her best to get her payments caught up. I also learned that she not only had her boys with her, but was taking care of her mother as well.

Jen told me how helpful our meal service and food pantry services had been, and then shared a heartbreaking story. She explained that she had been purchasing small milk cartons for the kids to use with the cereal in the food boxes. And then she told me how one day, on the walk for milk to the convenience store, she just stopped in the road, feeling overwhelmed.

She said “I just stood there and cried. I was at complete loss and did not know what to do. I just couldn’t do it anymore.” At this point I started to cry too.

I repeated that we wanted to help. I offered to connect her with other organizations to assist with some of the non-food issues she was facing. After confirming with the rest of the extended team later that afternoon, I went by her home to confirm the meeting would happen that evening at the Soup Kitchen.

After Jen’s meeting she came into my office, and she was a transformed person, with bright eyes and energy instead of a defeated look. She thanked me and the CSK team for making a connection with her, and for being so compassionate and recognizing her need for help.

Afterward, and through the connections we established, Jen got the assistance she needed for her family. The power was back on almost immediately, and she was able to get back on her feet and on a path to a better place for her kids and her mother. I now see her at the Soup Kitchen less frequently, which I know is a sign that things are getting better. But when I do see her, we greet each other as friends who have been through something together, a hard time but a time which is in the past.

It is people such as Jen that make me thankful for being able to play a role in changing people’s lives, not only with immediate food

assistance but by connecting those in crisis with a network of services that stand ready to help. It is inspiring knowing that Jen’s two kids and her Mom are all being cared for by a tough woman named Jen who got some help when she needed it.

This was made possible because of the donations we receive. So thank you! And if you are able, would you consider making a donation again this year?

Have a terrific holiday season.

Cindy Stevens

THANK YOU TO SO MANY

Thank you to the Good Neighbors Health Clinic and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth for their continued partnership with the Claremont Soup Kitchen. We are truly thankful to them for their help in aiding the less forunate of our community.

A special thank you to the corporate sponsors, fire fighters, police, volunteers and generous donors who helped make our first annual Fall Breakfast Fundraiser a huge success. A strong feeling of community and generosity could be felt in the dining room all morning. We raised

$5,801.00. This money will go directly towards supporting our current programs.

We are truly thankful for the continued support of our generous donors. Your support is extremely important during this difficult time. Your donation can make an immediate impact on a Sullivan County Family.

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