Page 12 - Real Rochdale Issue 21 Spring 2024

10 Years of Rochdale
Soup Kitchen
It was a cold December night in 2013, when
two women armed with a pan of soup began a
venture that would go on to help hundreds of
less fortunate people each week.
Dishing up pea and ham soup from the boot of
a car on Rochdale Town Hall car park, Marilyn
Jones and Vida Slater didn’t dream just how
big their venture would grow in the space of a
decade.
“We thought all the world would eat pea and
ham soup,” Marilyn said. “That first night we
had two visitors, and one of them was a
vegetarian. We’ve made vegetable-based soups
ever since.”
That night – the date long forgotten – was the
birth of the Soup Kitchen Rochdale, a service
which has grown from Vida and Marilyn
serving soup on a car park one night a week to
now having an army of committed volunteers
helping run the organisation from its own
premises three days a week.
“It was two weeks before Christmas, but we
didn’t make a mental note of the date – we
didn’t realise we’d still be here 10 years later,”
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Marilyn said. “We knew there was a need, but
we didn’t think it would still be going.”
In the early days, the Soup Kitchen ran every
Tuesday night for three months. The two
women knew there was an alternative
provision on a Monday night, and so opted
to provide a second hot meal for Rochdale’s
hungry people in need. Before long, demand
was such that they began to provide meals on
Wednesdays, before adding Fridays and then
Saturday lunchtimes, providing a two-course
cooked meal from a local hostel.
After three years, they were offered space at
the Parish Church of St Chad, a stone’s throw
away from the town hall car park, providing
shelter from the elements.
Marilyn continued: “We were out in the wind,
the rain, the snow, the sun, whatever weather
was being thrown at us. The vicar of St Chad’s
came to see what we were doing and asked
if we fancied using the church as a shelter, so
people could come inside and eat.”
The Soup Kitchen remained at St Chad’s for a
year before finding premises behind
Champness Hall in the former High Level
building.
“It seemed to be exactly what was needed:
seven rooms on three floors. What we wanted
to do was offer doctors and nurses space
when it was open so people could seek medical
advice, have their bandages changed, etc. We
wanted to include a shower, a washer and dryer
and a computer room so people could apply for
jobs and benefits: that was the dream,” Marilyn
explained.
The venue was slowly renovated and “all was
doing well” with the Soup Kitchen Rochdale
open each evening from Tuesday-Friday from
6pm to 7pm, as well as Saturday lunchtime.
Marilyn added: “We had a proper dining room
with a good kitchen. We were feeding an
average of 50 people per night with hot pasties,
sandwiches, cake, soup, and whatever else we
could find.”
She sighed: “Then Covid happened.
“We started working with other agencies like
the Sanctuary Trust to get parcels of food
delivered in lockdown. At the height of it, we
were sending 230 bags three times a week.
Each bag had enough supplies to last a couple
of days such as bread donated from the
supermarkets and a microwaveable meal.
“After the first lockdown, we opened again but
couldn’t reopen the dining room [due to
guidelines at the time]. We reopened with a
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table at the front and a Perspex screen and
handed out bags at the door.”
It’s a model which has survived post-lockdown
for the Soup Kitchen – a result of the number of
people attending on a drop-in basis, with over
100 bags of food being given out each time it
opens its doors.
“We can’t reopen the dining room because we
have too many people. It has a maximum
capacity of about 50 but we are thinking of
ways to reopen this,” Marilyn explained.
The Soup Kitchen also changed its hours,
instead opening in the middle of the day every
Monday, Wednesday and Friday, giving out
one of two bags. One bag, earmarked for rough
sleepers and homeless people, typically
features items that require no preparation,
whilst other bags for people struggling who are
not homeless, will typically feature a hot meal
which they can microwave. Other items can
include sandwiches, hot pasties, bread, cake,
biscuits – although there is some scope for
fresh produce.
“If possible, we give people another bag with
fresh fruit and vegetables, yoghurts,
whatever the supermarkets donate to us,”
Marilyn explained, before adding how
donations are shared with their other
non-profit operation, the foodbank-esque
Whitworth Lighthouse Community Foodshare.
The Lighthouse was set up in September 2020,
an idea which stemmed from the first lockdown
REAL ROCHDALE - SPRING 2024