Grace Episcopal Church

The Guild of St. Margaret Soup Kitchen, in operation at the Parish House of Grace Episcopal Church, (12 Depot St. Middletown, NY 10940) since June of 1980, provides a safe location for a nutritious hot meal once a day on weekends and twice a day Monday through Friday 365 days a year. In this urban there exist no other daily emergency feeding programs. Although there are several food pantries and one shelter program in the area, the Guild of St. Margaret is the only available emergency feeding program for those in the community who do not have the resources to have nutritious hot meals on a daily basis. The soup kitchen operates Monday through Friday from 6:30 am to 2:30 pm and is open to guests for breakfast from 7 am to 8:30 am and for a mid-day meal from 11am to 12 pm. The program also operates weekends – Saturdays from 8 am – 12:30 pm for a meal from 11 am – 12pm and 1pm-4:30 pm for a meal served from 1pm to 4pm on Sundays.
The target population of the Guild of St. Margaret Soup Kitchen emergency feeding program is the food insecure individuals and families in the Middletown, NY/Orange County New York area, typically living in poverty or near poverty levels which for the year 2017 in Middletown was 17% of the population, 6% higher than that of the surrounding region (Mid Hudson Community Profiles, https://mhvcommunityprofiles.org/, accessed 11/26/2019). In addition, many of those served at the soup kitchen suffer mental health, physical, and addiction issues that interfere with reliable delivery of services to them. Transient and homeless individuals who are not always eligible for services from other programs are also served by the Guild of St. Margaret Soup Kitchen. Undocumented individuals and migrant farm workers are more difficult to track but are also served by the soup kitchen. In a recent needs assessment survey 8% of respondents self-reported veteran status. In addition, the elderly (over 65) accounted for 3% of meals served at the Guild of St. Margaret Soup Kitchen in 2018.

Our program goals are to supplement the nutritional needs of these food insecure individuals primarily in the Greater Middletown area but including any individual requesting a meal. Meals made using nutritionally dense whole foods, including produce, vegetables, meats, fruits, and 1% or less non-flavored fat fluid milk with as little reliance on processed foods as possible are made available daily. Foods are purchased through the Food Bank of North Eastern New York, local farm shares, local produce companies and food delivery businesses or donated through gleaning programs, local farm donations, supermarket donation programs and local food drives.

Volunteers and staff must complete a mandatory basic food safety training class to be eligible to be scheduled. A written policies and procedures manual for staff and volunteers is distributed at the training and orientation workshops and in addition to training and development of volunteers, food safety certification through the food bank is required of all supervisory staff of the soup kitchen. Basic first aid, CPR certification and training in the administration of naloxone have been completed by all soup kitchen staff. In addition to training required of all supervisory staff, the Executive director maintains ServSafe food manager certification and Mental Health First Aid training