Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen provides hot, nutritious, well-balanced meals every weekday, including holidays, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. to guests who come from throughout the five boroughs of New York City.  These meals help sustain a person for the next 24 hours, a period when many will not have the means to eat again.  Everyone is welcomed without question or qualification.

A Typical Day for the Food Program

The day begins at 6 a.m. when the chef, sous chef, and prep cook arrive and roll eight dumpsters of garbage out of the church courtyard into the street for the Sanitation Department. There are boxes and cans, napkins and aprons and hats and food scraps.  Yesterday’s trash disposed of – attention is turned to today’s meal.

The Menu

Escalloped Turkey Ham and Pasta Casserole
(8 oz. portion)
Seasoned Sliced Carrots (3.5 ounce portion)
Broccoli Florets (3.5 ounce portion)
Sliced Peaches (6 ounce portion)
Bread and Butter (3-4 slices per person)
Iced Tea : For 1,150 Soup Kitchen Guests!

They begin with the pasta dish:

48 pounds of raw elbow macaroni
23 pounds of butter
17 pounds of flour
38 gallons of hot milk
23 pounds of grated sharp cheddar cheese
23 ounces Worcestershire sauce
23 ounces salt
23 ounces pepper
100 pounds cooked turkey ham

Cook macaroni, rinse with cold water and set aside. Melt butter, add flour and blend well. Add hot milk, stirring constantly. Cook 10 minutes or until thick and glossy, stirring occasionally. Add remaining ingredients to the milk mixture. Cook 10 minutes. Add cooked macaroni and mix well. Keep hot and serve.  Cooking this dish is followed by the preparation of 240 pounds of seasoned sliced carrots and 240 pounds of broccoli florets.

Throughout the morning the Soup Kitchen’s 12 staff members arrive on a staggered schedule to prepare the food and maintain the premises. By 10 a.m., some 55-60 volunteers are awaiting tasks to be done or assignments for when serving begins at 10:30.

The Soup Kitchen resembles a bee hive. Staff is opening 450 pounds of canned peaches. Two hundred pounds of bread – rye, pumpernickel, raisin, challah, white, wheat, cinnamon – awaits volunteers and staff who will spread it with 30-40 pounds of butter. Sixty gallons of iced tea is being brewed that will be sweetened with 100 pounds of sugar. Four hundred trays are moved into position, spoons are being wrapped in napkins; water and sugar is being distributed to tables. Volunteers are dashing in and donning gloves, hats, and plastic aprons.

As the serving lines are supplied with food, the Volunteer Coordinator assigns tasks to the volunteers needed to collect tickets, serve the food, keep the tables and chairs clean, serve the beverage of the day, watch the doors, empty the garbage, and greet guests. 

Promptly at 10:30, the doors open and the first of the guests begin to stream through. Each guest picks up a tray from the food line, stops at the beverage station for a drink, and quickly goes to one of the large round tables that seat eight each. By 12:30 p.m. the last of the guests have received their meals. Staff and volunteers, eager to sit down, line up for their own lunches.

By 1:30, the volunteers have departed. Now the cleaning begins.

Eight porters/service assistants wash trays and silver, pots and pans, clean stoves, ovens, and refrigerators, floors, walls, tables, chairs, and restrooms. The steward receives food deliveries for the coming weeks and begins to move the food for tomorrow from the basement storage area to the first floor kitchen. The operations manager sits quietly in his office planning the next 6-week meal cycle. The chef pulls recipes for the following week and prepares the chopping charts for vegetables. The prep cook works on the vegetables needed for the following day. At 4 p.m., the last of the mops disappear into the closet, the cutting/chopping machines shut down – and quiet prevails. Ten hours have elapsed and all is ready for tomorrow. Including those eight full dumpsters that need to be rolled to the street at 6 a.m.