Killing the Pain of Hunger with One Bowl of Soup at a Time! By: Abigail Sutton
Missions To feed the hungry. To help people acquire information on ways of getting the necessary everyday needs to survive. To give people information on how to obtain information on where to go to get additional resources that are available.
Goals To make sure that everyone who enters the facility receives a nutritional meal. To make sure that each individual is received and welcomed and treated with dignity and respect. To offer any means of support available e.g. meals, emotional, spiritual.
History Established the idea of feeding hungry in 1982 by a group of Valdosta churches. Ralph Bridges put in charge of organizing the foundation, is currently serving as chairmen of board. 1 st lunch served in 1983 served about 13 lunches on first day.
Legal Description The Soup Kitchen is classified as a 501c-3 organization with the IRS.
Membership The organization has 8 members on the board of directors. There are 3 paid employees. Mr. Bridges states that between the board and employees and volunteers there is enough to get the job done. The organization has dropped in membership throughout the years but this has not hurt the task at hand.
Volunteer Started out with about 148 volunteers. The organization used to schedule volunteers. Volunteers were unreliable. Volunteers started to decline so scheduling dropped. Currently have about 7-8 steady volunteers.
Clients Typically the soup kitchen serves between lunches in a day. This group consist of transients, homeless families, people from all walks of life. There is no screening process whomever walks in is fed. There is no charge, if the client would like to make a donation there is a jar to leave donation in.
Crisis The soup kitchen is going to be facing a dilemma in the near future; they are going to be remodeling the facilities that they are currently in so they have to move out for a period of time. The place that they have to relocate is considerably smaller and they are concerned with how they will accommodate all of their clients.