Women from the St Mary's Catholic Church in Vergenoeg recently decided to raise money, from their church and other sponsors, to start up a soup kitchen to feed those less fortunate.
Women from the St Mary's Catholic Church in Vergenoeg recently decided to raise money, from their church and other sponsors, to start up a soup kitchen to feed those less fortunate.
This soup kitchen, which is operated in one of the volunteers' house in Dickerson Street, was started in September and serves between 100 and 120 people on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This initiative was started with money which was donated by the church's Port Elizabeth Diocese.
One of the women who started this soup kitchen, Mathilda Williams, said, “Although we get bread from Oatlands Bakery, we are still asking people to come forward with help so that this soup kitchen continues to feed these people.”
Williams added that she suffers sleepless nights when she does not know what she is going to feed them the following day. “We wish we could feed these people each and every day, that is why we are appealing to the members of the community to help us make this project a success,” she said.
Despite plans to change the menu in summer, Williams and her team do not know what they are going to serve instead of soup.” We are going to change the menu in summer because it will be too hot for soup,” confirmed Lisa Morse, who is doing her community service as a dentist at Settlers Day Hospital. Morse said that she joined the project immediately after hearing about it because she always wanted to be involved in a project of this nature.
“Sometimes I can see it from my patients at the Day Hospital that there are lots of poor people in this area, and something needed to be done,” she said. Morse helps Williams' team with buying some of the things they need in order to keep the project running and to be able to cope with the rising number of beneficiaries.
"We also need a big pot and a gas cylinder so that we can operate smoothly,” added Morse. Hendrick Peters, who is one of the beneficiaries, said that he was happy and grateful for the soup kitchen and that it made a very big difference in his life. “This kitchen helps me a lot because I am not working, I wish it could run every day,” said Peters.
