And Now, A Soup Kitchen on Bainbridge
May 8th, 2009 by Rachel PritchettBy Rachel Pritchett
rpritchett@kitsapsun.com
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
A soup kitchen on Bainbridge Island? Has the recession come to that?
Island resident Kim Hendrickson and a corps of volunteers are planning one in the heart of one of Puget Sound’s most affluent suburbs.
The soup kitchen is just for one evening on May 23, to give folks who’ve been weakened and wearied by the recession an opportunity to enjoy a meal, hear some music and commiserate with others in the same boat.
“Because of the recession, I looked around and saw a lot of people suffering,” she said.
She and her husband are, too. He’s got a job, but they’d like to sell their Fort Ward home.
“We’re middle-class and nervous,” she said.
Why suffer alone?
“I want it to just evolve and see what happens,” Hendrickson said of the conversation she hopes will happen that night.
Soup will be on for 200 people, no charge, of course. All are invited, the kids, too.
With two small ones of her own, Hendrickson believes Winslow should be more family-friendly, with stores that sell things she needs and restaurants that serve food that moms with kids would eat. She hopes the soup kitchen will bust the boundaries of what she believes Winslow is today.
“My goal is to make downtown more inclusive,” Hendrickson said.
Besides that, there’s this one invitation:
“We hope to attract people of all conditions, since so many of us are joined, these days, in shared stress and uncertainty,” she writes on her blog.
Not everyone on Bainbridge has cottoned up to her plan.
“I get a lot of resistance” from some who asked her not to call it a soup kitchen, she said.
The 41-year-old Hendrickson wants the evening to be light, with the line blurring between who’s serving and who’s getting served. She’s helped out at church charity dinners, and found them forced. There were more volunteers than hungry people, and little mixing was taking place.
The food, this being Bainbridge, is going to be very good.
“The idea here is we can do a soup kitchen with gourmet food,” she said.
Local chefs will concoct the organic soups with an emphasis on local, seasonal ingredients. There will be rhubarb lemonade and hot, steaming cornbread, all to be enjoyed with the soothing strains from live music performances by several groups. All to offer this chance, for just for a couple of hours, to escape the pain.
“Most of all, it’s going to be fun,” she said.
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
May 8th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
It’s a great idea. Thanks to Kim for her creative and inclusive idea.
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:08 pm
A great way to bring the community together!