NORRISTOWN >> Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings arrived more than a week early to the Cecil and Grace Bean’s Soup Kitchen on Tuesday.
Some guests came with their taste buds primed for a holiday meal, while others were perhaps taken by surprise by the Thanksgiving feast, but no matter. There was clearly a method to the “madness” of a pre-mature turkey day, explained the soup kitchen’s managing director Bill Rinker.
“William Penn Inn brings a meal to us the third week of the month for our people, and they’re serving next week, during Thanksgiving week,” he said. “Also, next week all the soup kitchens and all the food pantries will be giving out turkeys and we know people will be all turkey-ed out by then. So we’re having our Thanksgiving celebration early and people here enjoy getting their turkey a little early.”
Volunteers, headed up by Ann Ullman, served up turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables and cranberry sauce cafeteria style.
An assortment of homemade pumpkin, apple and cherry pies were sliced and plated on a nearby table, waiting to satisfy dessert cravings.
Most of the food, with the exception of Mr. Ron’s coleslaw and rice pudding, had been prepared and donated by volunteers at Lower Providence Presbyterian Church and then simply reheated at the Norristown soup kitchen, Rinker explained.
“Two of our volunteers go to that church and they’ve been great to us in the past for both Thanksgiving and Christmas meals,” he said.
Roughly 10 20-pound turkeys had fed upwards of 200 people on Tuesday, he estimated.
Al, a frequent guest at the soup kitchen, commented on the high quality of the meal he’d just enjoyed.
“St. John’s has a beautiful meal four days a week, Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday breakfast. It’s a blessed place for camaraderie, great volunteers and a lovely church. God bless Norristown,” he said.
St. John’s Episcopal Church, which recently re-opened under the leadership of The Rev. Andrew “Andy” Kline, doesn’t run the soup kitchen anymore, Rinker pointed out.
“We’re not part of the church; we’re tenants of the church. When the church closed we were no longer allowed to be the St. John’s soup kitchen, so we went and got our own 501 (c) (3),” he said, adding that the majority of those who dine here are longtime regulars.
“The only criteria you have to meet here is to show up and be hungry,” said the Norristown native. “You don’t have to prove how much money you make or any of that. Although we do get homeless people we also get a lot of people who are down on their luck and maybe lost a job and do have housing but not enough money to get through the month.”
Tuesday’s Thanksgiving feast was the first Thanksgiving meal in many years to be served there that wasn’t under the direction of husband and wife team Grace and Cecil Bean, though their influence could be felt everywhere .
The couple, now 94 and 86, respectively, recently moved from Jeffersonville to an assisted living facility in Doylestown, noted Rinker, who has been part of the soup kitchen since 2005.
“We miss them, and that’s part of the reason the soup kitchen is now called Cecil and Grace Bean’s Soup Kitchen, Inc. We started the 501 (c) (3) in their honor so we could continue this. I could never fill their shoes,” he added, “but we wanted to carry on their legacy, and this is a great way to do it.”
Cecil and Grace Bean’s Soup Kitchen is located at 521 Church St., Norristown and is open for lunch Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and for Saturday breakfast, 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.
