OXFORD – The Taste N’ See Soup Kitchen is reopening its doors Monday. The soup kitchen first opened November 1998 as part of the Make a Difference Project, said organizer Charles McMullen. In 1998, while searching for a unique name with which to christen the soup kitchen, McMullen stumbled upon a Bible passage in Psalms that inspired him. Ever since then, for 35 Mondays every year, 115 or so hungry people crowd together at St. Paul’s Episcopal Parish House on 32 Main St. in Oxford to “taste and see.”
“We hope people who need it come, but everyone is welcome,” said McMullen. “They come from everywhere, from all over the county.”
McMullen tries to extend the hospitality of the kitchen as far as possible, opening the doors at 4 p.m. for coffee and serving dinner at 5:30 p.m.
The volunteers are comprised of a number of different groups, like the 8th grade middle schoolers who come over to serve food, or the Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts. There are even kids who just need community service hours. BOCES special needs group comes in Monday afternoons before the kitchen opens to the public and readies the parish hall. “They have been doing that for us the past 10 years,” said McMullen.
Still, a need more volunteers is always prevalent and there is something for anyone to do. Many of the people who volunteer grow loyal to the soup kitchen and keep coming back for more. “We all love doing it,” McMullen said. The soup kitchen does more than just feed the needy, it knits people together in the most comforting of ways. “The whole thing is really a family affair,” he said.
On top of the food services that are provided, Taste N’ See tries to inform people of other services and public assistance, acting as an information hub for the needy. “We try and make them aware of other things going on in the community that might benefit them,” said McMullen.
The soup kitchen developed a new program last year through a grant from the R.C. Smith Foundation. The kitchen promised to make extra food on top of the normal left overs and make to-go containers for people to take home, providing them with a meal for another day. The packaged food program proved such a success that McMullen is eager to run it again.
