On October 22, 1982, in response to the urgent need of the homeless men and women
living across the street in Chelsea Park, members of the Church of the Holy Apostles
served its first 35 meals and Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen was born. Under the direction and
vision of the Rev. Rand Frew, Holy Apostles was dedicated from its first day to serving
every hungry guest for as long as the need existed. No one imagined that need would still
exist 23 years later and at such an alarming rate.
In a matter of weeks, the Soup Kitchen was serving 300
meals a day. Four short years later it would grow to 800 a day; today the Soup Kitchen
serves over 1,100 meals each weekday. What started as a temporary, emergency
feeding program has grown to become one of the largest on-site feeding programs in the
country.
 A few months after the first meals were
served, the Rev. William A. Greenlaw came to Holy Apostles. Under his direction, Holy
Apostles Soup Kitchen has established itself as a model program for feeding the
city’s hungry and homeless.
From 1982 through 1990, the Soup Kitchen
operated out of the Mission House adjacent to the church. In a room the size of a large living
room, a maximum of 69 guests crammed in at seven tables. In 1990, HASK was serving an
average of 933 meals a day. Guests had less than 10 minutes to eat their lunches and then
move on so that space would be freed for the next hungry person.
In 1990, the impossible happened – a
disastrous fire destroyed the church’s roof and much of its interior. Despite the
devastation of the fire, one thing could not be forgotten – there were hundreds who
depended on Holy Apostles for what was often their only meal of the day. The very next day
following the fire, the usual line of men and women formed outside the Soup Kitchen.
Without electricity, a small army of volunteers provided food for all of the 943 people
who came to the Soup Kitchen. In fact, the Soup Kitchen has never missed a single day of
serving meals. How could we?
The church was restored in 1994 with
improved accommodations for our guests. The fixed pews in the church were replaced with
movable seating so that the spacious nave of the church could be turned into one big
dining room. It is here, amid the serenity of the church, that guests eat lunch each
weekday. "They come to us as brothers and sisters in need, and we offer hospitality
and the most nourishing meal we can provide," says Father Greenlaw. "This sacred
duty to reach out to all of God’s children appropriately takes place in our own
sacred place, a place of beauty and hope."
Our dream at Holy Apostles is that
someday the need for the Soup Kitchen will disappear. "The real solution to ending
hunger," says the Rev. Elizabeth Maxwell, program director, "is a long-term
commitment to social change. Not until concrete national policies are
set up and
administered will the problem of hunger and homelessness truly be eradicated."
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