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.
THE WEALTHIEST STATE IN THE NATION: THE VIEW FROM THE SOUP KITCHEN By Peter Wise
New Jersey is now officially the wealthiest state in the nation, according to United States Census 2000. On a per household income basis, we’ve passed Connecticut. How has this desirable situation affected the level of poverty?
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Chris Christie is decisive, but divisive New Jersey Newsroom, August 30, 2010 By Irwin Stoolmacher
The United States is in very big trouble! All of the Republican candidates for the Presidency have rejected a long-term deficit reduction package that contained $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in revenue increases. According to Bill Clinton they have repudiated compromise to placate “antitax absolutist like Grover Norquist.”
Selling Shared sacrifice is the key to President Obama’s Reelection The Trenton Times Newspaper, January 21, 2012 By Irwin Stoolmacher
Use investment tax credits to create American jobs By Martin Tuchman, CEO Tuchman Group and Vice Chairman, First Choice Bank
Budget cutting and tax increasing alone will not reverse the worst economic downturn since the great depression. In fact, in the short-run most budget cutting measures, i.e., cutting the defense budget, reducing the federal workforce, freezing domestic discretionary spending, will increase the nation’s staggering unemployment rate. Increasing taxes is also not a solution since it removes capital from the most productive sector of job creation: the private sector. To solve our nation’s economic problems we need to dramatically stimulate private investment.
Poverty & the Military – The Nine Percent Solution By Peter Wise
Poverty stalks the land – in our region, our state, our country and the whole world.
Relative to our region let me pose a question: With all the great public eating establishments in Mercer County, which one does the most business? Answer: The Trenton Area Soup Kitchen – over 3,500 meals per week, 15,000 meals per month. It’s the most popular public eating place in all of Mercer County. Last year TASK provided 185,000 meals.
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. Peter and Irwin 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.
