‘Started with an idea’: Dilworth Soup Kitchen & Food Pantry celebrates 15 years
The Dilworth Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry celebrated a large milestone this holiday season: Its 15th anniversary.
ALSO READ: Local food pantry sees increase in number of families seeking assistance
The group’s official anniversary was on Christmas Eve, but to spread some more holiday joy, they decided to mark the event by hosting a Christmas morning lunch for its guests on Monday morning.
Reverand Jolin Wilks McElroy works at First Christian Church on East Boulevard in south Charlotte and is one of the soup kitchen’s co-founders. She credited Allen Saxe, who got the ball rolling on the soup kitchen idea more than a decade ago.
“Allen Saxe, a Dilworth resident, had a vision that a local church could be host to a soup kitchen,” McElroy said. “He said that for not much money, you could feed a lot of people with a pot of soup. So Allen planted the seed.”
In 2008, many were struggling to provide for themselves and their families. That’s when McElroy began bringing up the idea of gatherings that the church could put together to help those in need. That’s when Allen Saxe came forward with an idea he and his wife had been throwing around: a soup kitchen.
Together, Saxe and McElroy would establish several core values that still stand strong today:
Treat guests with respect.
Serve guests as if this were a restaurant.
Use real dishware, glasses, and silverware.
No requirements, no charge
No paperwork or lists are required.
All guests are important.
Everyone must wait in line.
(WATCH BELOW: Huntersville-based food pantry looking for new space to grow)
