SAGINAW, MI — As several hundred East Side Soup Kitchen patrons gathered to celebrate the holidays, Director Diane Keenan led her staff and volunteers in a feed-those-in-need event that was different from the norm.
Little was said in regard to 2025, but the year to come will be one-of-a-kind as well.
You don’t see musical artists performing at meal sites, but a keyboard and vocal combo duo went through all the Christmas hits, from Jingle Bells to Silent Night, drawing a lanky gentleman in red sweats to the dance floor.
Thrift stores normally are not linked to soup kitchens. Still, after the hearty lunch with ham as the centerpiece, greens and mac-and-cheese among the sides, diners were given six tickets apiece for their choices of coats, along with some books and toys and winter attire for the kids on break from school.
Police usually are on patrol. On this weekday they were serving the lunch trays, representing multiple jurisdictions across the county. For that matter, the patrons also arrived from near and far, all ages and ethnic groups.
Expansion in the works
If the soup kitchen’s 2024 holiday program was noteworthy, just wait until the full agenda for 2025.
Instead of hearing music, by year’s end congregants may be listening to jackhammers. A multi-million-dollar expansion is planned for the 20-year-old Hunger Solutions Center, home of both the soup kitchen and the Hidden Harvest food recovery operation, with space created by closing Thompson street at the rear.
About a mile across the Cathedral District, at 310 Meredith off South Washington, another crew this spring is slated to begin construction of Saginaw Food Club, a subsidized statewide model that features discounts to all, deeper for lower incomes.
At the same time, a priority is to pursue a mini-Meijer of sorts, similar to Detroit’s recent efforts to address what are known as “food deserts” in today’s parlance.
Annie Boensch and George Copeland were the prior City Council’s leaders in the food and nutrition ARPA bucket. From the federal anti-covid American Rescue Plan Act, $2 million was split between the Hunger Center and the Food Club.
The pair of council members, with Boensch completing her 13th year and Copeland his fourth, viewed the budgeting as a blend that demonstrates the age-old feeding programs always will have a place, while efforts for self-sufficiency may address the ever-growing need.
A positive result, in their view, would be more people with self-selected groceries through shopping encounters, reducing the lines for meals and for boxed non-perishables in handout fashion.
While the Saginaw Community Food Club and Kitchen appears as the new teammate among anti-poverty efforts, organizing under Tina Swanton during her YMCA years actually started, in cooperation with an array of local programs, before the pandemic and President Biden’s $1.9 trillion ARPA revamp of the 1960s War on Poverty, including $52 million for Saginaw. A model based in Grand Rapids can be found on Google. For example, a family with two or three children could earn up to the $50,000 range and still receive aid, whether on cash or on an EBT card.
Boensch contends challenges remain, including for people whose low-middle incomes disqualify them from various aid programs, but anything to increase choices is positive.
Saginaw is not bound by the statewide Food Club model and original standards may be set here, including possible “time dollars” in exchange for community volunteerism.
Swanton says she has faith in the concept, and that competition is welcome, be it from big-box franchises in the suburbs or in newfangled smaller outlets in poverty areas where dollar stores now proliferate.
For her latest condensed presentation to the current council, from which Boensch and Copeland were voted off on Nov. 5, go to the Dec. 9 meeting video and skip ahead to 25:40.
