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Stone Soup, Blanket Brigade volunteers help homeless

Free meals, personal items, conversation part of outreach in downtown Vancouver

By Stevie Mathieu, Columbian Assistant Metro Editor
Published: December 28, 2014, 4:00pm
4 Photos
Joe Lukowiak, a homeless Vancouver man, eats and chats Sunday afternoon at the Stone Soup Community Meal in Turtle Place Park.
Joe Lukowiak, a homeless Vancouver man, eats and chats Sunday afternoon at the Stone Soup Community Meal in Turtle Place Park. Photo Gallery

On the Web

More information about the Stone Soup Community Meal is at:

www.facebook.com/pages/Stone-Soup-Community-Meal/1455696331328386

For more about the Blanket Brigade, visit:

www.facebook.com/pages/Blanket-Brigade/166267173404845

At the end of each month, a group of volunteers provides free meals to downtown Vancouver’s homeless, but their service extends beyond handing over a plate of hot food.

Those who volunteer at the monthly Stone Soup Community Meal also sit down, break bread and have conversations with those in need. For many of the homeless who attend the Sunday afternoon event, it could be the only pleasant, substantial interaction they’ve had this month with the “outside world,” said volunteer Michelle Bart, president of the Northwest Women’s Coalition Against Violence & Exploitation.

It was her second time volunteering at the Stone Soup, which is 1 to 3 p.m. on the last Sunday of each month in downtown’s Turtle Place Park. “I expected to hand the plate over, and they’d walk away,” Bart said, “but that’s not what happened.”

After dishing up baked ham, salad, carrot-ginger soup and gingerbread, the volunteers sat at the plastic tables and chairs that had been set up under a canopy and talked with their guests. The monthly meal has drawn community leaders, including political candidates, who are able to visit with some of their most vulnerable constituents, said Hector Hinojosa, one of the event’s creators.

On the Web

More information about the Stone Soup Community Meal is at:

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stone-Soup-Community-Meal/1455696331328386">www.facebook.com/pages/Stone-Soup-Community-Meal/1455696331328386</a>

For more about the Blanket Brigade, visit:

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Blanket-Brigade/166267173404845">www.facebook.com/pages/Blanket-Brigade/166267173404845</a>

“How many people say ‘hello’ to homeless people? Nobody,” Hinojosa said.

Hinojosa is co-owner of Jo Foody’s, a catering company and a vendor at the Vancouver Farmers Market. His conversations with the city’s homeless started when they would approach his cart at the farmers market and ask if they could help out. He gave food to people who couldn’t afford to pay him and let some of them help break down his booth at the end of the day.

He helped launch the Stone Soup meals in June.

At least 30 homeless people were served on Sunday, but the Stone Soup meal usually draws more than that, volunteers said.

Joe Lukowiak is homeless in downtown Vancouver. He said he began coming to the Stone Soup meals months ago, and that the event shows “that people still care.”

“There’s a lot of people who are walking by and look down at you,” Lukowiak said. “Not all homeless people are the same; they stereotype you.”

Lukowiak, a self-described alcoholic, said he encounters occasional acts of kindness, such as one shop owner who invites him inside for a warm cup of soup on chilly nights.

Not everyone was happy to see the free meal provided at the park. Gerald Bartlett, president of the Parkview Condos’ board of directors, stopped to express his concerns to Hinojosa. The condos overlook Turtle Place and Esther Short parks, and Bartlett said some homeless people use the parks as a place to drink or use drugs.

Though Bartlett said he didn’t have a clear solution to solving homelessness in downtown Vancouver, providing food for those in need was “allowing them to be successfully homeless. … This enables them to be able to do this.”

But, Hinojosa said, getting to know members of the city’s homeless population is a key step to getting them back on their feet. Some of the homeless people he’s met have completely lost hope that they could have a better life.

“You have to change a mindset,” Hinojosa said. “How do you break that cycle? For me, it’s just encouragement — not to talk down to anybody. We’re neighbors.”

In addition to a hot meal, people also received blankets, scarves and mittens, and hygiene kits complete with soap, shampoo, toothpaste and a toothbrush. They also could take a box of crackers with them.

The blankets were provided by an organization called the Blanket Brigade, which Vancouver resident Eileen Cowen helped start about 5 years ago. She and her husband began by driving around Vancouver and handing out blankets, but the Stone Soup events give her a stationary spot to connect with people in need.

“It’s been pretty great,” she said. She added that the Blanket Brigade distributes an estimated 1,000 blankets a year in Vancouver.

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Columbian Assistant Metro Editor