Soup Kitchen

The experience of helping out at the soup kitchen was a very interesting one. For the most part of the time that I was there I was serving food to the people coming in. At one point it was quite busy and more and more people came in to get their meal. By the end, we counted 95 people who received meals from the soup kitchen. We probably served most of these people in a span of 20 minutes. I didn’t really know what to expect, but that seems like a pretty good number to me.

            I thought that the system was very efficient and good in terms of quality. The food looked really good and healthy and in the end people could get as much as they wanted. I think that many places outside the US could use a system as good and efficient as this one. The problem there, I suppose, is that it takes a hefty amount of money to have a place like this operating.

            While I was serving, I observed the people coming in and out of the kitchen. While observing them, I thought about what Fitchen said about hunger not just being a biological problem but a psychological problem as well. Not being able to provide food for yourself could make you look at yourself within society in a very unfavorable way. This could obviously take a very big toll on emotional health. Maybe there were other reasons for this, but many of those who showed up for meals looked to be in low spirits.