Through garden and soup kitchen, these volunteers fill need in Broome County

Darlene Leonard of Endicott pulls weeds, thins carrots and picks beans from the garden outside Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Endicott.

“I call it God’s garden,” she said.

Then, Leonard brings the vegetables inside the church to its kitchen where she and other volunteers cook and serve them to people who attend the church’s weekly soup kitchen.

“If people are hungry, we need to feed them,” she said. “It’s a mission. It’s what God wants us to do for them.”

Leonard volunteers in two missions that feed the hungry at Our Lady of Good Counsel: the garden and the soup kitchen. All vegetables grown in the garden are either served in the church’s weekly soup kitchen or given away to those who attend the soup kitchen, Leonard said.

Leonard serves as a co-director of the church’s soup kitchen along with Karen Babicek and Kelley Hamlin. Eleven teams of eight to 10 volunteers take turns each week cooking for the soup kitchen. Most volunteers are parishioners but the church gets some help from non-parishioners, too. Some volunteers have been cooking, serving and welcoming guests to the soup kitchen for more than 20 years, Leonard said.

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The church’s garden is a more recent ministry which started in 2007. That’s when Marcia Krauza-Martin of Endicott began planting, weeding and tending the garden, she said. Sixteen years later, she still weeds, waters and picks vegetables.

“It’s an easy and practical way to help people,” she said. “It’s helping your neighbors.”

Both the garden and soup kitchen get lots of volunteer help, Leonard said. One parishioner at Our Lady of Good Counsel raises chickens and donates cartons of fresh eggs. Other parishioners share the bounty from their own personal gardens. They stop by the church with bags full of homegrown zucchini, tomatoes and peppers.

When more help is needed, a notice in the church’s bulletin or a mention of the need during weekend Masses is enough to motivate new volunteers to head for the kitchen or the garden, Leonard said.

“The call to service has not been difficult,” she said. “When we say we need more people, they come.”

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Homemade desserts are made by Bonnie Underwood, who also leads the church’s garden ministry.

“This is my church,” Underwood said. “Being a part of this church is who I am and what I love to do.”

There’s a lot of work involved with growing the garden and preparing for the soup kitchen each week.

Approximately 45 to 50 people attend the dinner each week which is down from the 75 to 80 who attended before the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020. But numbers are starting to increase, Leonard said.

The church never stopped serving its weekly dinner even during the worst days of the pandemic, Leonard said. For a while, volunteers handed out dinners to go but they returned to serving a sit down meal last year.

Leonard and other church volunteers say they have no intention of slowing down.

“I like feeding people,” she said. “It’s very rewarding to me.”

More about Our Lady of Good Counsel Church

Rev. Richard P. Prior Jr. serves as pastor of the church located at 701 W. Main St., Endicott. Weekend Masses are held at 9 a.m. on Saturdays and 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Sundays. For more information, go to olgcendicott.org or call (607) 748-7417.

If you go: A free meal is served every Friday at 5:30 p.m. at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church located at 701 W. Main St., Endicott.

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This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Endicott church's farm-to-table soup kitchen run by these volunteers