The Soup Kitchen

The Soup Kitchen

Each Monday morning for the last several months we have volunteered at the Soup Kitchen in Munich.  It is run by the Missionaries of Charity (Mother Theresa's Order) and serves lunch to 60-100 people six days a week at 2:00 in the afternoon.  It has been a pleasure to get to know the four nuns who coordinate the donations and the volunteers, make the meal, and minister to individuals and families who are in need.  They are a generous, cheerful, and friendly group who work long hours and are very dedicated to the task of helping others.  They have a wonderful "God will provide" attitude and are grateful for everything.

Sister Marie Franc and Sister Alexia 

The Soup Kitchen is completely operated on donations and each day's soup is bit like "Stone Soup" - whatever is donated is what goes in the pot.  They also serve a salad, bread and tea with the soup, if the supplies are available.  If families are in need, they are given food to take home, since the Sisters don't feel the atmosphere is appropriate for children.  They then visit the family in their home and provide as much additional support as they can.

The Dining Room

They receive vegetable donations on Wednesdays from restaurants and grocery stores.  They have very little refrigeration, but use the cellar to store fruits and vegetables, which means by the time we get there the following Monday, many vegetables are past their prime.  The Sisters do a nice job of making the most of what they have, and the soup generally smells quite good by the time we leave at noon.

Tuesday is the day for meat deliveries.  They seem to get a lot of Leberkäse, a German "meat loaf" that is a very popular lunch or snack when sliced thick and in a roll with mustard. It tastes a lot like a hot dog, but is often the only meat in the soup.  What beef they do get is saved for Sunday when they serve goulash and potatoes.

So what do we do? Generally we cut vegetables for soup, either for Monday's soup or to get a head start on Tuesday, in case volunteers don't show up.  Gary is usually assigned carrots, and it has become a bit of a joke with Sister Alexia.  The problem with the carrots, as with most of the vegetables, is that they were donated because they couldn't be used or sold to the public, so they are often small, misshapen, a bit wiggly, and take a lot of time to find the usable portion.  One day we were given many heads of Kohlrabi, which is very hard to cut.  Another day we cleaned about ten bags of Brussel sprouts.  A couple of times when there weren't many vegetables to cut, we were assigned other tasks - cleaning windows and de-greasing the vent hood -- that was not our favorite.  :-)

Carrots and cabbage go into the soup
on most days.

Break Time- with Chris, the other Monday Volunteer