We Need You To Volunteer

June 2, 2024

MERCY SOUP KITCHEN SEEKING VOLUNTEERS

“For I was hungry and you gave me food…” Matthew 25:35

Located in the basement of Trinity Lutheran Church at 17 South 20th Street, the Kitchen served its first meal to hungry people in 1980 and currently serves an average of 151 hot meals per day.

The Kitchen relies heavily on its generous volunteer support and, as such, numerous on-site and off-site volunteer opportunities are now available.

While there are openings for on-site positions, such as helping to prepare and serve meals and to perform various maintenance functions, there are also openings for diverse off-site positions in areas such as picking up donations and bringing them to the soup kitchen, grant development and preparation, marketing duties, social media facilitation and fund raising/donation coordination.

Only with the efforts of its volunteers can the Kitchen succeed in its mission to provide food security to those in need.  Please consider sharing some of your time and talents with the Kitchen to make this happen.  We invite you to join our team.

Dear Friends,

We have been experiencing a significant increase in the number of people needing our help.

Last month we served 3,176 complete nutritious hot meals. That’s an average of 151 hot meals a day. Our cafeteria serving line always offers meat, starch "(rice, potatoes, pasta, etc.), and vegetables prepared in our kitchen by our talented volunteer cooks. Next comes the green salad, then the fruit salad, followed by dessert coffee and a cold drink. And of course, what soup kitchen meal would be complete without the hot satisfying soup made fresh every day by our proud soup specialists.

In addition to the hot meals, we serve an equal number of extra meals for our guests to share with their families, consisting of sandwiches and other optional fresh and packaged food items that our guests select on their way out of the dining room.

About half of our guests chose to eat a meal in the dining room while others chose to take their meals to go.

Your generous support is appreciated and has enabled us to continue our mission for the past 43 years.

With sincere thanks,

Vito

 How can you help?

There are many ways to help individually or by organizing a group.

Making sandwiches is one of them, also food drives and fund raisers.

We do not need any more peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.

Ham and cheese, turkey, bologna with or without cheese, and plain cheese sandwiches are preferred by our guests.

One teenager makes pound cakes for us.

I would be happy to discuss any ideas you may have at 631-358-9917. 

Thanks,

Vito

Mercy Soup Kitchen of Wyandanch, Inc. 

Phone 632-643-5117

P. O. Box 1642                        Website: https://www.mercysoupkitchen.org

17 South 20th Street                

Wyandanch NY 11798             

Vito W. Colletti - President -Mobile: 631-358-9917        Email: Vito@MercySoupKitchen.org

Food drive:

There are several ways to run a food drive.

Supermarket food drive:

Get permission from the store manager.

Stand out front and explain to customers on their way into the supermarket that you are collecting food for the Mercy Soup Kitchen.

Hand them a list of most needed items.

Mercy Soup Kitchen of Wyandanch, Inc.

check out our website - MercySoupKitchen.org

 Mercy Soup Kitchen is most in need of:

Cooking   spray

Olive   oil and vegetable oil

Parmalat   (shelf stable) Milk

Chicken/   beef/ veg broth

Turkey/   chicken/ beef gravy

Short   dry pasta (penne, ziti, shells, ditalini)

Canned   Vegetables - large cans preferably #10 cans or 18-29oz. cans 

Canned   Tomatoes - large cans preferably #10 cans or 18-29oz. cans 

Instant   Mashed Potatoes

White Rice

Dinner   Napkins

Paper   towels

Individual   Shelf stable snacks - for lunch bags

Large   cans Powdered drink mix

Supermarket   Gift Cards

Collect their donations on their way out of the supermarket.

Bring the items collected to the soup kitchen.

The best hours for a supermarket food drive are from 9 AM to 2 PM on Saturday or Sunday.

Community or Religious group food drive:

Hand out bags with a list of most needed items attached to the members of the group or organization.

Collect the bags with the donations.

Bring the bags with the items collected to the soup kitchen.

Fund raisers:

Fundraisers can take many forms from dinner dances, simple raffles, fifty-fifty or in many cases a combination of all these.

A popular one is a night at the races.

Or simply ask members of your group to donate to the Mercy Soup Kitchen.

Solicit sponsors for a walk or run.

We welcome any assistance you can provide to help us feed the less fortunate members of our community.

For further information, contact Vito Colletti at 631-358-9917 or vcolletti@optonline.net