soup kitchen colorado springs

Soup Kitchen Colorado Springs - Volunteers Charnel Allen and Gregory Armstrong (right) hand out sack lunches at the Marian House Soup Kitchen on Wednesday, June 3, 2020. Next Monday, the kitchen will resume serving hot sit-down meals. (Photo by Jerilee Bennett, The )

Volunteers Charnel Allen and Gregory Armstrong (right) hand out sack lunches at the Marian House Soup Kitchen on Wednesday, June 3, 2020. Next Monday, the kitchen will resume serving hot sit-down meals. (Photo by Jerilee Bennett, The ) JERILEE BENNETT, THE

Soup Kitchen Colorado Springs

Colorado Springs' oldest soup kitchen has been feeding anyone who needs a meal for 50 years, and now Marian House is doing away with the "soup" and the "kitchen."

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The phrase conjures up a desperate image of soup with chunks of meat or floating vegetables, said Rochelle Schlortt, spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of Central Colorado, which runs the Marian House in downtown Colorado Springs.

Daily lunch, now under COVID-19 restrictions, is served from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in eight locations, offers a hot meal that includes a main dish, side dish, salad, bread, dessert and drink.

Rearranging the seating from picnic-style tables and benches to round tables and chairs and offering "generous portions" of pre-prepared meals instead of a cafeteria-style serving line has turned the "soup kitchen" into a dining room more than a restaurant, said Schlortt.

The changes add dignity and give guests a sense of dining rather than receiving institutional service, she said.

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COVID-19 also added to the need for a food card with guest names and contact information, in case tracking is needed in case of viral infections, said Lorri Orwig, senior vice president of operations.

The changes come as the Springs Rescue Mission, another campus about a mile away that also offers services to the homeless, has expanded and on Thursday began serving breakfast, lunch and dinner to a clientele that is primarily the chronically homeless.

Marian House has now shifted to focus on families, seniors, people with disabilities and the working poor, many of whom are served in its other programs which include assistance with employment, housing, medical care, writing - reading, language, guidance, budget, family. problems, legal issues, identification and other needs.

The pandemic has reduced meals from 500 to 600 per day to a maximum of 288 in the main dining room and a few families in a separate family room.

What Is A Soup Kitchen?

The organization isn't sure where the hundreds of other clients went, but Schlortt speculates that more families stayed home and got food from local pantries and school distributions.

"We tend to look at COVID as all the things that it prevents us from doing, but from our perspective it allowed us to move forward to make some changes that we wanted to make for a while," Schlortt said.

"It was time to make our dining room more welcoming, dignified and have servers for our guests."

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