When Fulton Soup Kitchen volunteers showed up Jan. 2, they found a broken cooler full of spoiled food.
“Some people hadn’t had anything to eat in over three days,” soup kitchen board member Lori Collins said.
Milk, butter, sauces, dressings, fresh vegetables and more had to be discarded and now must be replaced.
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Collins said donations have dropped off in recent months, straining an already tight budget. Repairing the cooler and replacing spoiled food has made a tough situation worse.
“It’s a very old cooler that we inherited from a restaurant that closed down,” she said. “It’s gone out before, but we were always able to repair it before much damage was done.”
While Collins said she and the other volunteers eventually would like to replace the cooler, right now, restocking on food is the priority. Walmart has donated fresh produce, but the soup kitchen is still short on other items.
They’re also short on volunteers. The Fulton Soup Kitchen is a completely volunteer-run organization and doesn’t receive any federal grants. In recent years, the soup kitchen’s services have expanded to include lunches and Friday meals.
“But we haven’t really had enough new volunteers and donations to keep up,” she said. “Our current volunteers have been worn thin.”
The soup kitchen, which operates out of the John C. Harris Community Center is the only soup kitchen regularly serving hot meals in Fulton and one of few places open during the day for people who have nowhere else to go.
“We try to make it a true community center,” Collins said.