More Than Bread: Ethnography of a Soup Kitchen

3. The Tabernacle Soup Kitchen

3 The Tabernacle Soup Kitchen The Tabernacle Soup Kitchen in Middle City is one of forty soup kitchens in a northeastern state. It is located in the basement of Saint Mary's Church, and serves a hot noontime meal, six days a week. Saint Mary's Church is Protestant in denomination and has a congregation of approximately 250 members. The parishioners are heterogeneous in economic and educational status, with a fairly large proportion coming from two nearby university communities. The soup kitchen was established in 1981, when the City Ministry committee of the church decided that the number of poor and hungry in Middle City had grown to alarming proportions. For five years preceding the establishment of the soup kitchen, Saint Mary's City Ministry had provided free suppers to the city's poor on Thursday evenings. The free suppers were a way for the church to provide a concrete service to the poor. It was an opportunity for Saint Mary's parishioners to have direct association with a portion of the population with whom they would have little contact in their daily lives. Saint Mary's Church conceives of the soup kitchen as a part of its ministry to the poor. On the first page of the City Ministry brochure , under the heading Our Call-Our Commitment the ministry is described as follows: St. Mary's lies in the heart of the city, and the city lies in the heart of St. Mary's. The city's problems are our problems: urban 23 24 More Than Bread poverty, a large deinstitutionalized population, the closing of local industry, an unemployment rate above the national average. These problems and our commitment are the foundation of our call to ministry. Another of the City Ministry's newsletters expressed the work of the parishioners with the poor as "living the gospel." Since 1981 the Tabernacle Soup Kitchen has been feeding an average of 80 to 100 persons six days a week. It is administered by the City Ministry committee, which also sponsors a food pantry and an emergency fuel fund. The minister who directed the initial effort that created the Tabernacle Soup Kitchen was the Reverend Smith, a dynamic man, who, one year after the beginnings of the soup kitchen, left the area for a much larger community. In the next three years, Saint Mary's saw one new minister and two assistant ministers come and then leave the parish. For one full year Saint Mary's was without a spiritual director, yet the soup kitchen program continued without interruption. This suggests that the soup kitchen has a life of its own and is not dependent on a particular minister. Not all of Saint Mary's 250 members are enthusiastic supporters of the soup kitchen. Some individuals complain about the physical deterioration of the church caused by extensive use. The disagreements are symbolized by discussions concerning the sign hanging outside the church announcing the soup kitchen's existence. During the first two years there were complaints about the unsightliness of the large hand-drawn sign, and it was replaced by a smaller, more discreet, professionally lettered sign. The discussions about the sign seem to be a way for the church members to express their feelings about the soup kitchen guests (many of whom are as "unsightly" as the initial sign), without confronting the issue of the church's ministry to the poor. Saint Mary's is a gray stone Gothic-type building one block from the downtown area of the city. In order to enter the soup kitchen, one must descend a set of stairs leading to the church basement. A strong odor of cleaning materials, perspiration, and old food greets 25 The Tabernacle Soup Kitchen one at the entrance. There is a rest room for women on the Hoor above the basement, and amen's room off the dining room. These bathrooms are an important convenience in the life of the soup kitchen, where the guests may spend three and four hours at a time. The dining room is large, open, and dimly lit, and contains thirty old Formica-topped tables dispersed throughout the room. In one comer there is a blackened piece of rug, several high chairs, and a crib. This is the children's comer, and often young mothers and their children take the tables nearest the rug area. During the summers of 1983, 1984, and 1985 there...