{"id":238,"date":"2017-12-08T21:59:42","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T21:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/2017\/12\/08\/2017128local-soup-kitchen-feeds-less-fortunate\/"},"modified":"2020-09-05T19:49:45","modified_gmt":"2020-09-05T19:49:45","slug":"2017128local-soup-kitchen-feeds-less-fortunate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/2017\/12\/08\/2017128local-soup-kitchen-feeds-less-fortunate\/","title":{"rendered":"Local soup kitchen keeps people fed during the holiday season"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Shauna Golden and Jenelle Cadigan<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Lucy Fernandez, manager of Christ Bread of Life Soup Kitchen<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Only a few miles up the road on Dixwell Avenue, volunteers spend time cooking large meals at the Christ Bread of Life Soup Kitchen.<\/p>\n

According to manager Lucy Fernandez, the soup kitchen – formerly known as St. Ann’s Soup Kitchen – provides meals to anywhere between 50 to 150 homeless, unemployed and underemployed people a day.<\/p>\n

Fernandez greets each person by name, with a bright smile on her face, as they walk through the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feed them on a daily basis, from Monday through Friday and we serve them lunch. We serve them a full course meal, which would be with a starch, a soup, a vegetable, a meat and dessert,\u201d Fernandez explained. \u201cIt’s like a restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from serving people home-cooked meals, the volunteers at the soup kitchen also offer access to a food pantry. The pantry is stocked with various canned goods and other non-perishable food items.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery Friday, we give them bags of groceries. They get on a list. For the holidays we give them a special meal. If we have any coats, as part of a new program, we give them clothing and coats,\u201d Fernandez said.<\/p>\n

And since the kitchen is closed on Christmas because it’s an official church holiday, Fernandez thinks ahead to make sure no one goes hungry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I do is I bag food to take with them. So what I will do is, I make them a big holiday dinner the day before. And then I give them the bags to make sure they have food,\u201d Fernandez said.<\/p>\n

She also communicates with other local churches to see who is going to be open on days like holidays.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther churches give us flyers, so we give flyers out. No one goes without eating that day … nobody goes a holiday without eating,\u201d Fernandez said.<\/p>\n

Aside from food, Fernandez says the most important thing they give to the individuals is a sense of hope.<\/p>\n

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“We speak to them and encourage them and build them up. We’re friends to them. I don’t want just know a face, I want to know their name, I want to interact with them.” Fernandez said. “They’re already suffering, so we nurture them and we care for them.”<\/p>\n

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By Shauna Golden and Jenelle Cadigan Lucy Fernandez, manager of Christ Bread of Life Soup Kitchen Only a few miles up the road on Dixwell Avenue, volunteers spend time cooking large meals at the Christ Bread of Life Soup Kitchen. According to manager Lucy Fernandez, the soup kitchen – formerly known as St. Ann’s Soup … Continue reading Local soup kitchen keeps people fed during the holiday season<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hamden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3063,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions\/3063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}