Operating a soup kitchen can be very challenging, but it is also replete with daily rewards as you do your part to help alleviate the pain and indignity of hunger. Mission Possible should be required reading for any person or group desiring to start a soup kitchen. The book will be equally helpful to those who want to expand their existing soup kitchen or add a hot meal program to their food pantry, overnight shelter or other social service agency.
The book gives practical and crucial information on how to raise funds, acquire food, recruit volunteers and much more. Mission Possible is based on the authors 35 years of working with the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK) located in Trenton, New Jersey.
The book and the website are underwritten by the Tuchman Foundation, headed by Martin Tuchman, the conceiver of the project and one of the book’s co-authors.
The book contains 14 chapters and 4 appendices. Each chapter is composed of two sections: a two to three page overview of the subject followed by a list of tips, guides to some of the more subtle operations of a soup kitchen.
The book is organized in chronological fashion. It will take you from very conceptual considerations to relatively detailed instructions on the most common challenges you will face. In all cases, our essential goal has been to be practical and helpful.
Since the books release in July 2011 and its availability as a downloadable file, indivduals in all 50 states and more than 150 different countries have downloaded the book.
It’s Not Rocket Science: Helping the Poor Become Self ReliantBy Peter Wise
He is an artist in motion. He has made running a local soup kitchen into an art form rather than a science, although his nature calls out for science. Still the scientist in him carefully tracks the number of meals the soup kitchen serves its clients. Last year the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK) served 171,724 meals. This represents an increase from 159,896 the year before and around 90,000 in 1998, the year Peter Wise came to TASK as its new director. TASK now serves nearly 3,600 meals each week to the poor and needy. And there in the center of it all is the artful director: choreographing the volunteers who help to cook and serve the meals, pitching for donations of food from area schools and churches, soliciting local corporations for financial support and overseeing the delivery of other social services to people desperate for food to survive and some help to lift themselves out of poverty. Peter, who in his sixties makes the job of running a soup kitchen for the poor look like a work of art, has only been doing it for seven years with no previous experience in food management. If you ask him what he did before coming to work at TASK, he’ll casually mention that he was a “rocket scientist.”
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Wide difference in perception Drives, dives our parties The Trenton Times Newspaper, April 29, 2012 By Irwin Stoolmacher
Up until recently, I thought that the cause of the country's political system's failure was the lack of civility and its resultant political polarization. It struck me lately that the incessant conflict between the political parties is not the cause of the problem, but rather the result of the radically different views of government that liberals and conservatives now hold. This cleavage in perception is at the core of the irreconcilable differences that surface on many issues, i.e. spending cuts, tax increases, funding the social services safety net, government regulations, bailouts for Wall Street and the auto industry, government subsidies, the trans-Canadian pipeline and domestic drilling.
Helping the Hungry One Morsel at a Time, Stone Soup Serves Compassion and Caring.
Inspired by a children's story, Stone Soup is a way of saving the tidbits of food that would normally have been thrown out as useless, and combining them into a hearty soup which is then donated to the poor and hungry.
For more information on the program visit their website.
View the Stone Soup Recipe.
A recent message received on the Mission Possible website from a Social Worker in Rhode Island
I saw your book advertised in the SUNY Binghamton Alumni News. I am a clinical social worker living in Rhode Island. Part of what I do here is run a transitional house for homeless adults. The Board and I are meeting shortly to consider new projects that we might undertake, as services for caring for the homeless population have undergone some shifts which have presented us with new challenges.
Book receives praise from South Africa
I just want to say thank you for the book. I'm based in South Africa and working with the Ward Councillor who wants to start several soup kitchens for his community. Thank You!
Archived News
Glowing Praise for Mission Possible:
"In these rough and tumble times, when the number of our neighbors who are hungry, or who are coming up short during any given month continues to escalate, the publishing of Mission Possible could not be more timely. The authors have done a great job of taking what was learned at the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK) and used that base to build a bold "soup kitchen primer". If you want to start a kitchen, make yours more powerful or just learn more, then this is a great introduction. If you see need in your community, don’t wait…read this book, get involved, step UP…we need your help." - Robert L.E. Egger President, DC Central Kitchen Campus Kitchens Project/V3 Campaign
"This is the best and most complete guide that I have ever seen for anyone considering beginning a soup kitchen. Step by step it will guide - it covers everything - but it is so much more. For those soup kitchens ready to do more than provide a meal, this is a guide for you too. Food banks across the country are actively involved in building the capacity of the charities they serve. This is a great tool for doing just that." - Kathleen F. DiChiara | President and CEO |Community Food Bank of New Jersey
"Working in a soup kitchen is one the hardest yet most fulfilling tasks. Most, soup kitchen work is holy work. It’s God’s work. Of course, we need to abolish hunger, poverty, war and nuclear weapons, but as we work for justice, we need to feed our hungry neighbors, for they are God in disguise. This book shows us how to do that. It’s helpful, immediately practical and encouraging. I hope it inspires many people to feed the hungry." - Rev. John Dear, author, The Question of Jesus and A Persistent Peace
"Mission Possible is important and unfortunately most relevant for the simple but urgent fact that growing numbers of Americans go hungry due to the lack of money to purchase food. The authors are well respected leaders in the community with recognized skills and competence in the non-profit sector. This book is an outstanding overview of how to establish or enhance the functioning of Soup Kitchens, using the best practices of non-profit management." - Fran Dolan, Former Executive Director, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Trenton
"Mission Possible is a practical, deeply inspiring guide filled with basic information on how to start a soup kitchen. It is needed now more than ever." - Loretta Schwartz-Nobel, Author, Growing Up Empty: How Federal Policies are Starving America’s Children; Starving in the Shadow of Plenty
"Almost everyone wants to do something to make a difference. Visionary leaders of the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (T.A.S.K) have made a huge difference in the lives of their patrons and in those of us who have been privileged to work with them. Mission Possible is about the best practices that have changed peoples' lives for the better through a soup kitchen. Here's the model. Make a difference!" - E. Roy Riley, Bishop, New Jersey Synod, ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)
Irwin S. Stoolmacher, Martin Tuchman & Peter C. Wise have more than thirty-five years of in the trenches experience working with the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK).
Download the entire book (PDF, 5.78 MB) complete with artwork.
