Salamanca — Thousands of people depend on The Community Lighthouse Soup Kitchen and the facility hangs in a delicate balance with old, worn out appliances and equipment. Located in the Cattaraugus Community Action (CCA) building at 25 Jefferson St., the kitchen also serves as a base for several much-needed community programs.
Christina Ehlers, director of food security, said the soup kitchen is old and it’s the same basic kitchen — the stove, the ovens and warming tables — from the original school cafeteria that was in the building.
Patsi Magara, employment specialist, said the soup kitchen needs to be upgraded and maintained. It needs commercial-grade equipment to handle the scale of food it puts out each week. If any major equipment breaks in the kitchen, a lot of people will be affected.
“We need the equipment to keep people fed and to train them to become successful and independent,” she said. “It would be a shame if our range broke, for example, and we had to stop doing what we are doing.”
Three major programs at CCA depend on the kitchen: Lighthouse Soup Kitchen, Summer Lunch Program, and the Food for Thought training program.
According to data provided by Ehlers, the Lighthouse Soup Kitchen opened in 1995 and 17,000 meals were served from the kitchen in 2013. The kitchen is open to everyone in the community, Monday through Friday from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. and provides free meals for 60 to 120 people daily.
The Summer Lunch Program, made possible through a state grant, has also been around for quite a while. Through the soup kitchen, it provided 12,712 meals to children all over Cattaraugus County in 2013. The program is available to all children through age 18 and, if disabled, through age 21.
The Food for Thought training program started three years ago and runs two 15-week sessions for underemployed adults and out-of-school youths. A new session began Feb. 3. Another program is designed for youths between the ages of 16 and 18 and runs for six weeks.
“We recently had a local contractor volunteer to come in and to do preventative maintenance on the stove, so we’re hoping that helps,” she said. “He told us it is working well for as old as it is. It needs maintenance, but we don’t have the money to pay for maintenance.”
After much research, Magara estimates that it would take approximately $26,000 worth of kitchen appliances and materials to upgrade the time-worn kitchen completely. She said a new commercial range alone would cost about $3,000.
The kitchen also needs small equipment in good condition including a food processor, blender, sharpening steels, wand mixer, stock pots, sternos, and cheesecloth. Ehlers said although they welcome donations of gently used equipment, storage is an issue, so they can’t take on too many small items.
“We would like to go through the whole kitchen and get updated equipment,” she said. “We need a new industrial-size dishwasher and an industrial-size stove/oven … those kinds of things.”
Magara listed a number of staples, which can be donated, needed by the kitchen on a regular basis including oils, shortening, flour, sugars, spices, tin foil, plastic wrap and paper products.
“Non-perishable food donations are always accepted from the public,” Ehlers said. “The soup kitchen is inspected by the health department and is regulated through the state. We get food donations from restaurants that are also inspected by the health department.”
The soup kitchen is run mostly by volunteers throughout the community who have helped out at the soup kitchen since it was established.
According to Ehlers, an adult group from Springville comes to volunteer one day a month. There are also individual volunteers who come in because they want to give back to the community.
CCA also works with schools in the area. Ehlers explained that students are required to do a certain number of hours of community service, usually through a social studies class. They come in and volunteer, mostly in the soup kitchen, because it’s convenient being right after school, from 3:30-5 p.m.
Ehlers commented that it’s very convenient for clients to come to the soup kitchen and dine in a nice area where they can socialize. They can have a hot meal in the afternoon and, before they leave, they can get a food box to take home. CCA has a food pantry that is open from 9 a.m. to noon, 12:30 to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Clients can utilize the food pantry once a month to help stretch their budgets.
“The Lighthouse Soup Kitchen is open to anyone that needs a hot, nutritious meal — no questions asked — because if someone needs a hot, nutritious meal, they should feel welcome, comfortable and safe here, as well as get fed,” she said.
Ehlers said the focus is on the need of the soup kitchen itself and its programs that serve such a huge need in the community.
“Volunteers prepare the food, serve it and clean up afterward,” she said. “It would be nice to give them what they need to continue their good work.”
The Lighthouse Soup Kitchen serves nutritious meals for community members Monday through Friday, 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. For more information call (716) 945-1041 or visit online at ccaction.org.
