A group of committed seniors are doing their part to assist the Ray of Hope soup kitchen in Moncton, which has experienced an increase in the number of people in need of meals.
“I am better to do something for my fellow man than to just sit home feeling sorry for myself,” said Adrienne Fagan who started volunteering at the soup kitchen several days a week after her husband of 73 years recently passed away.
Brenda Caverly Ray, the head chef at Ray of Hope in St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic church in Moncton, said, “She would turn up every day if you let her.”
Fagan claimed that giving food to the hungry had given her a new sense of purpose.
Because of my age, I didn’t think I would be welcomed here, she claimed.
Far from it, according to Caverly, some of the oldest volunteers in the hot, hectic kitchen that serves hundreds of people each day are over 80 years old.
Ivan Desroches, 83, has been serving food and his smile at the soup kitchen for the past 8 years. Always willing to share a joke, “I am a bit of a tease you know,” he says.
He remarked, “I do a few hours every day and I enjoy it.
“With the man he is in love with, you can never be in a bad mood. He embodies the spirit of giving back, said Caverly.
Both of the elders have found it difficult to watch the number of people who cannot afford meals climb so quickly in the face of increases in gas, grocery, and housing expenses.
You never know, Fagan added, “it might be one of my own down in horrible difficulties like that.”
Yet they share not only meals but also sympathy as they work through their own discomforts.
Desroches remarked, “They even say we wouldn’t know what to do if it weren’t for you people.
It fuels both of them.
“Right now everything is so expensive there is going to be more and more of those people,” said Fagan.
She and Deroches intend to keep providing lunches as long as they are able and there is a demand.
Dedicated elders work at the soup kitchen in Moncton to feed the poor.
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