GREENFIELD — Stone Soup Café celebrated 15 years of community service on the Greenfield Common on Sunday with food, ice cream, hula hooping and much gratitude.
“We’re entirely grateful to all of our volunteers, our community members and donors, and all those who live far and near who come and support the café through all of its different events,” Executive Director and Chef Kirsten Levitt said.
The nonprofit is dedicated to fighting food insecurity through pay-what-you-can community meals each Saturday, a home delivery program and a Community Store that provides free groceries and essentials. Stone Soup Café was founded in Montague in 2010 as the “Let All Eat Café,” and later moved to All Souls Church in Greenfield, where 550 to 600 people are fed every Saturday.
In honor of the milestone, Stone Soup Café presented five foundational volunteers with Volunteer Achievement Awards.
Levitt explained that honoring individual volunteers is new for the nonprofit, but that it felt important to recognize the people who have been with the organization from early on.
“We really felt like, if we don’t honor our foundation, then what are we built on?” Levitt said.
Five volunteers were recognized: Dianne Peloquin, who has dedicated more than 2,500 volunteer hours; Becca King, the organization’s first volunteer coordinator; Mary Rose Newton, the nonprofit’s second volunteer coordinator; Aggie Mitchkoski, who ran the café and dining; and Joyce Vanderclef, another foundational volunteer.
“They’ve dedicated themselves selflessly, as volunteers, as supporters, as donors — for 15 years they’ve been with us,” Levitt said.
What first drew King to Stone Soup Café was the sense that it was different from other community meal programs.
“We wanted it to be not an us-and-them operation, but we, together,” King recounted. “We had people who were from all walks of life, and that was what I loved about it. That’s really what drew me to Stone Soup — that we were able to sit down, after prepping the meal, after setting the table, after getting everything as close to a restaurant look that we could … and then we’d sit down together with all kinds of different people that we normally would not be meeting in our social circles.
“And to this day, I still see people that I sat down with there,” King continued. “We greet each other as long-lost family. It’s just so heartwarming. It is an experience of being human that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”
Peloquin explained she first got involved with Stone Soup Café in 2020 by volunteering with her workplace. From there, she fell in love with the community aspect.
“Everybody works together and everyone is welcome and accepted, and it just makes me feel good to be a part of that,” Peloquin said.
Peloquin noted she was surprised to receive the award. “I just do what I can to help.”
Newton echoed Peloquin’s appreciation for the Stone Soup Café community.
“I’ve met a lot of people, and it’s helped me to learn how to live with a community of people from all walks of life,” Newton said. “It’s really helped me to feel like I serve.”
Additionally, Stone Soup Café received honors from the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, as well as from Congressman Jim McGovern.
“It’s hugely significant to us that partnerships exist with community organizations, both at the local, the state and the national levels,” Levitt said. “And so for us to be recognized at the state and national levels really was very wonderful and vital to us.”
Levitt expressed gratitude for the partnerships that Stone Soup Café has been able to build with McGovern’s office and Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton.
Reflecting on Stone Soup Café’s history so far, Levitt continued, “There are many, many, many organizations out there, and many of them don’t last more than a couple of years, and so to have a decade and a half is quite significant. We really feel like we’re in the next phase of our organization where we’re looking to grow even more.”