A Soup Kitchen in Disguise as an UpMarket Restaurant, Serving Homeless with Dignity

There are a lot of good people in the world.
Those who run and volunteer at soup kitchens to ensure people experiencing homelessness and poverty can still have access to food are providing an incredibly important service to their communities.

But sometimes, with long queues, cooking in bulk and the need to serve as many people as possible as quickly as possible, it can be a dehumanisng experience, dining in a soup kitchen. Dehumanisation of homeless people in public is an unfortunate reality of their lives as it is, as those walking by often, not through heartlessness but uncertainty, avoid looking at beggars and those experiencing poverty, they avert their gazes so as to go on their way without having to take on the sad reality that homeless people are experiencing when you're uncertain as to how you can help. It means that nobody looks at homeless people, they often don't experience eye contact or even acknowledgement and can feel excluded from human society as a result.

Episcopal Community Services' soup kitchen is making sure to treat their patrons with respect and the same type of service and respect that those with the income to dine out have come to expect.

Not only that, but by encouraging homeless and veteran patrons to volunteer themselves, they are teaching valuable skills in the hospitality industry that might just help them get back on their feet.

It will be wonderful if they are successful in turning this type of soup kitchen into the norm.

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