Difficult times for Covenant Soup Kitchen

Some of the shelves at the soup kitchen’s pantry are becoming bare. This shelf is for meals in cans, such as chili and soup. Photo by Roxanne Pandolfi

Dressed in a button- down shirt, Kevin Mack of Willimantic escaped the snowy spring day to grab lunch in his hometown.

Mack, however, was not eating at a restaurant.

Like many others affected by the recession, Mack, a former hardware store owner, recently found himself unemployed and struggling to find work.

He was one of many diners having lunch at the Covenant Soup Kitchen at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on 220 Valley St. Monday, a meal that drew people from all walks of life.

Times are tough for Mack and they’re equally tough for the soup kitchen, with empty food shelves and high demand showing that, even as pundits talk of recovery, the local community still has to get back on its feet.

Covenant Soup Kitchen Director Paul Doyle said the organization draws an average of 60 people during breakfast, served from 9:15 to 11 a.m., and 100 people for lunch, served from 12:15 to 1 p.m.

Doyle said the shelter is in need of donations, as it did not get as much funding as it needed during its annual fundraising drive. It needs help.

Incoming revenue is not catch­ing up with the soup kitchen’s $380,000 budget, with an estimat­ed $38,000 in donations needed.

Not only does the soup kitchen provide much-needed meals, it supervises a food pantry and programs aimed at helping the less fortunate adjust back into soci­ety, such as job-search skills and personal budgeting, among other services.

In addition, the facility is in need of food items for the kitchen and pantry, as well as hygienic items.

The following food items are especially needed for the pantry: canned fruit, canned stew, canned ravioli, dried pasta and soup.

The pantry is open every after­noon from 2 to 4 p.m.

Items needed for the kitchen include black pepper, chicken, beef and vegetable broth, coffee, cooking spray and ketchup.

“We are in a little bit of a crisis,” Doyle said.

Mack said he comes to the shel­ter for meals a few times a week and is looking to run another business similar to the one he had. “I’ve always been self-employed,” Mack said.

Mack has two children who are 8 and 10 years old.

Ken Saber, who is staying at the Windham No Freeze Hospitality Center on Main Street, was anoth­er individual who stepped out of the cold for a warm meal.

Saber, a former maintenance custodian at Wal-Mart, has been living at the Main Street shelter for about four months and has been unemployed for three years. He is looking for cashier and janitor jobs in the Willimantic area.

Many local volunteers assist at the soup kitchen on a regular basis.

During a visit Monday, a fifth-­grade Girl Scout troop from Ash­ford had school off and decided to help those in need by serving at the kitchen.

Lori Swift of Ashford, the girl’s troop leader, said the troop comes to the shelter to help out every year and seven of the nine girls in the troop came to help Monday.

“They love it,” Swift said. “They do it every year.”

Swift said the girls will also be preparing Easter baskets for the needy this year, the first time they are doing so.

This activity will be done in conjunction with churches in Mansfield.

One individual who was touched by the generosity of volunteers at the kitchen was Mack.

“When things were going great for me, I always volunteered,” Mack said.

The kitchen is currently looking for drivers to pick up and deliver donations, individuals to stock food items in the pantry, mainte­nance workers and gardeners.

Those interested in making a donation or volunteering can contact the kitchen at (860) 423-1643 or stop in for a visit. More information about the programs is available on its web site, www.covenantsoupkitchen.org.

Posted March 26, 2011

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For you Civil War buffs – A program on Connecticut’s monuments

The Union Monument in Colchester, CT commemorates those who died in the Civil War. Created by George E. Bissel, 1875. From ctmonuments.net

The Civil War was America’s bloodiest conflict, claiming more than 620,000 lives.  For Connecticut alone, the death toll was close to 5,000 soldiers.

The enormity of the loss led to public mourning on a massive scale and the unprecedented building of monuments and memorials.

In July of 1863, Kensington, Connecticut dedicated the state’s and also the north’s first Civil War monument.

Since then, about 140 monuments have been erected in our state to commemorate the Civil War and memorialize its fallen.

Probably the best known is the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Hartford’s Bushnell Park, completed in 1886.

The most recent one was erected in New Haven in 2008 to commemorate the Connecticut 29th Colored Regiment Connecticut Volunteers.

On Friday April 8, architectural historian Mary M. Donohue will present a talk and photographic tour of some of Connecticut’s Civil War monuments.

She will discuss their fascinating history and also describe some of the efforts being made to preserve them.

The program is sponsored by the Mansfield Historical Society and will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Buchanan Auditorium at the Mansfield Public Library (54 Warrenville Road).

Admission is free for members and children under 16; $3.00 for non-members.

The Civil War memorial in East Hampton, CT. From ctmonuments.net

Ms. Donohue is the Survey and Grants Director at the CT Commission on Culture and Tourism, the successor agency to the Connecticut Historical Commission.

She has overseen all the community surveys of historic properties in the state, as well as numerous state-wide surveys, including one on historic outdoor sculpture.

She is the author or co-author of numerous publications on the state’s historic resources.  The latest is A Life of the Land: Connecticut’s Jewish Farmers, co-authored with Briann G. Greenfield, Associate Professor of Public History at Central Connecticut State University.

This book, published by the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford in 2010, tells the story of Connecticut’s Jewish immigrant farmers through historical data, oral history interviews and unique photo essays. Copies of this book will be available for purchase following the program ($25).

Posted March 26, 2011

Related links:

Connecticut Historical Society – CT Civil War monuments http://www.chs.org/finding_aides/ransom/townlist.htm

Connecticut War Monuments http://ctmonuments.net/

U.S. Civil War photos – CT – monuments http://www.usa-civil-war.com/Gettysburg/g_usa_a.html

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This Saturday at Storrs Farmers Market

Don’t forget, you can still get local, fresh foods at the Winter Storrs Farmers Market, which is open from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday (March 26) at the Mansfield Public Library, in the Buchanan Auditorium (on the right side of the library).

You can also keep track of what’s going on at the market on Facebook and on Twitter.

Some of what you will find at the market:

• from Bailey’s Maple Syrup, maple vinegar, fresh local honey;

• from Baldwin Brook Farm – raw milk, organic pasture-raised pork including nitrate-free, smoked, thick cut bacon and hams, organic Angus beef;

• from Culinary Expressions – fresh baked pies and breads;

• from Dondero Orchards – apples and veggies;

• from Dragon’s Blood Elixir – hot sauces made with CT-grown produce;

• from Farm to Hearth – rustic, hearty breads baked in wood-fire oven, roasted CT-grown mushroom foccacia, Celtic Harvest (country bread with organic brown rice, organic corn grits, organic rolled oats);

• from Four Mile River Farm – steaks, kabobs, hardwood-smoked hotdogs, Kellidogs, nitrate-free corned beef, pork bratwurst, beef chili;

• from Quiet Corner Coffee Roasters – Brazil Cerrado, Sumatra Mandheling, and Sumatra Water Wash Decaf;

• from Shundahai Farm – salad greens, spinach, butternut squash, turnips;

• from Spring Acres Farm – skeins of wool yarn;

• from Tobacco Road Farm – salad greens, parsnips, leeks, turnips, rutabaga, burdock root.

Posted March 26, 2011

Have a news item or event you’d like to see posted on this news site? Simply send your information to editor@htnp.com and include your town in the subject line of your email. Please also include a phone number where you can be reached if there are questions.