An agreement reached between officials at the Fulton Housing Authority and the Fulton Soup Kitchen will allow the meal service to go forward.
The contract was signed Thursday between the Housing Authority, which provides space for soup kitchen meals in its John C. Harris community room, and soup kitchen officials. Changes are in the offing, however.
“We have decided it’s quarterly, when we regularly will meet,” Housing Authority Executive Director Anne Johnson said of the contract. “It will help keep lines of communication open.”
The soup kitchen unexpectedly shut down temporarily in January while representatives of both entities ironed out concerns. Among changes made were hours of operation, soup kitchen president Katherine Bader said.
“We finally got it settled and got a contract signed yesterday,” Bader said Friday. “The big change is the hours.”
Lunches will be served Mondays through Fridays. Dinners will be served Mondays through Thursdays, excluding Friday evenings. Also, the soup kitchen will not be open when Fulton schools are closed.
The soup kitchen will be closed on national holidays: New Years Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day and the following Friday, and Christmas Day.
Johnson said the soup kitchen will continue to operate with no rent payment to the Housing Authority. The soup kitchen has operated meals at the Harris center for about 10 years.
The number of people served grows toward the end of each month. In January, Bader said during the beginning of the month, when people receive Social Security, pension and other payments, they might serve half as many people as at the end of each month, when perhaps 70 people are served meals a day.