Soup Kitchens
Cecil and Grace Bean’s Soup Kitchen
On Valentine’s Day, Tuesday, February 14, 2017, a day for lovers, the Cecil and Grace Bean’s Soup Kitchen located on Church Street in Norristown, Pa. was serving food to the poor. There was a long line of people standing outside waiting to get in so they could receive a hot meal. For some this is the only meal they will have for the day. Volunteers who work the soup kitchen have a cafeteria style setup where they serve the people as they move through the line. The menu for the day was Tuna Fish on a Croissant, Ham and Bean Soup, Broccoli and Crackers.
People were entering in droves. Before long the place was packed. Mike Rogers, a volunteer at the soup kitchen has been working there for several years, and he said that the Soup Kitchen was founded by Cecil and Grace Bean. Rogers said the soup kitchen has been up and running “for over thirty years now.”
Rogers also said that, “Grace Bean is ninety-five now, and she is fine, but she is not as active as she use to be.” The people coming through the soup kitchen were mostly black and white, men and women. There were three children among the crowd. One was a baby girl approximately six or seven months, another girl approximately age four, and another girl look to be around age twelve. The age group of the adult guest appeared to be a mixture of young and old, ranging from late twenty’s to mid seventy’s.
Seeing these people in their time of need is very hard to watch because there were at least two people in this soup kitchen that I knew, and that was heartbreaking. It was also very easy to see that the majority of the people here were either drug addicts or alcoholics. A lot of these people needed more than a hot meal, they definitely needed medical care.
“Soup Kitchens became prominent in the United States in the 20th century during the Great Depression. With improved economic conditions that followed World War II, soup kitchens became less widely used, however, in the United States there was resurgence in the use of soup kitchens following the cutbacks in welfare that were implemented in the early 1980s.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soup_kitchen
There are a host of Food Pantries, Soup Kitchens and Food Banks in the Philadelphia and surrounding areas. To locate one in your area go to the following link: However, please note that Food Banks do not directly serve individuals in need.
http://www.homelessshelterdirectory.org/cgi-bin/id/cityfoodbanks.cgi?city=Philadelphia&state=PA
The world has had starving and hungry people among us since the beginning of time. Food banks and Soup kitchens are trying to help as many people as they can. However, they will never solve the problem because a lot of these people are, poor, uneducated, elderly, sick physically or mentally and drug or alcohol depended. It will take more than a Food bank or a soup kitchen to solve these unfortunate peoples’ problems, but at least these places of hope are trying to make a difference. If it were not for soup kitchens, some people would not be able to eat at all. It is nice to know that these people do have somewhere to turn in their despair.
This is a photo of former President Barack Obama serving lunch in the dining room “So Others Might Eat,” a soup kitchen in Washington, D.C., on January 18, 2010.
Photo retrieved from: Useable Rights site at the following link:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MLK_service_obama.JPG
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