Killing the Pain of Hunger with One Bowl of Soup at a Time!

By: Abigail Sutton

Missions

• To feed the hungry.

• To help people acquire information on ways of getting the necessary everyday needs to survive.

• To give people information on how to obtain information on where to go to get additional resources that are available.

Goals

• To make sure that everyone who enters the facility receives a nutritional meal.

• To make sure that each individual is received and welcomed and treated with dignity and respect.

• To offer any means of support available e.g. meals, emotional, spiritual.

History

• Established the idea of feeding hungry in 1982 by a group of Valdosta churches.

• Ralph Bridges put in charge of organizing the foundation, is currently serving as chairmen of board.

• 1st lunch served in 1983 served about 13 lunches on first day.

Legal Description

• The Soup Kitchen is classified as a 501c-3 organization with the IRS.

Membership

• The organization has 8 members on the board of directors.

• There are 3 paid employees.• Mr. Bridges states that between the board

and employees and volunteers there is enough to get the job done.

• The organization has dropped in membership throughout the years but this has not hurt the task at hand.

Volunteer

• Started out with about 148 volunteers.

• The organization used to schedule volunteers.

• Volunteers were unreliable.

• Volunteers started to decline so scheduling dropped.

• Currently have about 7-8 steady volunteers.

Clients

• Typically the soup kitchen serves between 145-150 lunches in a day.

• This group consist of transients, homeless families, people from all walks of life.

• There is no screening process whomever walks in is fed.

• There is no charge, if the client would like to make a donation there is a jar to leave donation in.

Crisis

• The soup kitchen is going to be facing a dilemma in the near future; they are going to be remodeling the facilities that they are currently in so they have to move out for a period of time. The place that they have to relocate is considerably smaller and they are concerned with how they will accommodate all of their clients.