SS Monica & Luke Soup Kitchen

Every Friday for more than 30 years. That’s more than 1560 Fridays. And on each and every one of them, Saints Monica and Luke Church in Gary, IN has fed people.

The parish soup kitchen fed people when there were many people in the pews, when the volunteers were young and strong. It continues to feed people now, when there are fewer people in the pews and the volunteers are less young, less strong, and fewer in number.

People get fed during heat waves and blizzards. They get fed when donations are up and when donations are down.

This soup kitchen didn’t miss a day during the entire Covid-19 pandemic. Not one. The volunteers took precautions to protect themselves and the people they serve, and things went from a sit-down meal to take-out meals of good quality. Expenses soared, and the number of people in need exploded. But not a day was missed.

Now the soup kitchen needs some help to continue its role as a reliable source of help and hope in a distressed part of Gary, Indiana. The cost of food has nearly doubled, and when you add in supplies and utilities it now costs around $1600 per month to provide a reliable meal to people who need one.

It might seem like one meal a week isn’t much, and wouldn’t be missed if it went away. But that isn’t what the guests of the soup kitchen tell us. They tell us it’s a beacon of hope in hard times, that’s it’s something they can count on when everything else seems unpredictable in bad ways. In some ways, it’s even a sign of resistance to the way things are, a persistent reminder that people are hurting in a world that often tries to forget them.

None of the people who run the soup kitchen gets paid. That means everything you contribute makes it possible to feed people in need.

The people we serve need us, and we need you. Our savings are depleted, and we’re trying to cobble together enough money to keep things afloat while we explore more stable sources of financial support.

Please be generous, and pass the word. All contributions are tax-deductible, and will make a real-world difference to people you’ll likely never get to meet. We thank you on their behalf.