Mission committee co-chair Eleanor Kuhl said the soup kitchen project is approaching its 12th year, and continues to serve a growing need in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t just serve the homeless,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re serving the unemployed, the underemployed, the elderly, children and families. We serve anybody who comes in. It is a broad spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the height of the recession in 2009-10 Hope\u2019s Kitchen, located across from the Cortez Police Department, often served up to 165 people in a single day. The facility offers complete hot meals at noon on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays.<\/p>\n
Increasing demand has lead to a food-drive campaign to keep cupboards and freezers filled. In honor of the Denver Broncos, Hope\u2019s Kitchen launched \u201cSOUPer Bowl Sunday\u201d to inspire the community to donate food and cash so the humanitarian mission can continue to keep up.<\/p>\n
The soup kitchen especially needs large cans of corn, beans, diced tomatoes, and other tomato products.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease plan ahead when you are shopping between now and February 2 and pick up some large # 10 cans of vegetables that we need for our community meals,\u201d Kuhl said. \u201cWe usually have the food drive within our church, so this time we thought we would open it up to the community focused around the Superbowl.\u201d<\/p>\n
So far $70 and 20 cans have been collected.<\/p>\n
Cans may be delivered to Hampton Hall at the Methodist Church, 515 N. Park St., Cortez, Saturday Jan. 25 from 9-3, or on \u201cSOUPer Bowl\u201d Sunday, Feb. 2, from 8:30 am until noon. Please bring the cans to the south entrance.<\/p>\n
Larry Gessner, manager of Hope Kitchen, urges volunteers to come forward as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cSoup kitchens are little prone to the one-day volunteer, and we appreciate that, but we also can always use volunteers with more commitment who are willing to go on the schedule,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In his third year, Gessner is seeing more demand for basic services in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d say 80 percent of our clientele are the working poor, individuals and families who cannot make it on low minimum wages,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing more elderly folks because they can come in here and have their one big meal of the day, saving their fixed incomes to stretch out their food supplies at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizers report generous donations from Wal-mart, City Market, and Safeway.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got plenty of hams and turkeys thanks to local grocery stores, but our canned vegetables need replenishing,\u201d Gessler said. \u201cReally cash is also a good donation so we can continue the upkeep of the kitchen. We spend it on cleaning supplies, spices, equipment maintenance and upgrades.\u201d<\/p>\n
New volunteer cook Michael Dupui is proud to use his culinary skills to serve the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m an RVer who works at Mesa Verde seasonally. I\u2019m here for the winter with free time, so I decided to help out,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is nice to see people enjoying our meals. They\u2019re thankful and I enjoy cooking and meeting the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
An experienced cook, Dupui just served up Hungarian goulash, and is preparing chicken stew and homemade biscuits for an upcoming meal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you know of any, we could use commercial-kitchen grade pots and pans, and good prepping knives as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Excess supplies and food at Hopes Kitchen are shared with The Bridge Emergency Shelter, WINGS Safehouse, and other social welfare agencies in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody is grateful for these meals,\u201d Kuhl said. \u201cOne thing we\u2019ve been noticing is that attendance goes up toward the end of the month when people\u2019s wages come up short, or when monthly Social Security benefits run out.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you prefer to send a monetary contribution instead of cans, please sent your check to Cortez First United Methodist Church, PO Box 1016, Cortez, CO 81321 and indicate on the memo line \u201cHopes Kitchen.\u201d For questions, call 564-0708 or 565-7990.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mission committee co-chair Eleanor Kuhl said the soup kitchen project is approaching its 12th year, and continues to serve a growing need in the community. \u201cWe don\u2019t just serve the homeless,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re serving the unemployed, the underemployed, the elderly, children and families. We serve anybody who comes in. It is a broad spectrum.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-59936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59936"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=59936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}