The Waterville Area Soup Kitchen has bought the building it has been leasing for the last three years and plans to expand its dining room, and develop space for health professionals to help those in need.

Kitchen officials also plan to launch a $500,000 capital campaign soon to help raise money to pay the mortgage off on the 8,000-square-foot building at 38 College Ave. Half of the building is leased by Favorites, Pioneer Gaming‘s off track betting parlor, which plans to move to the former Habitat for Humanity store on Silver Street.

“We have a mortgage, and I don’t want a mortgage,” said Carla Caron, the kitchen’s executive director. “The sooner we get that paid off, the sooner we can continue to focus on feeding people and providing the supports in our space that they need.”

At the soup kitchen Nov. 12, Caron, 57, said she hopes to raise the $500,000 within a year.

“I know it’s hefty, but I think it’s doable,” she said.

The plan to expand is being driven by an increase in need. Caron recalled serving 52 meals the day the soup kitchen opened May 2, 2022.

“We have exceeded a quarter of a million meals since our inception,” she said, “and we will exceed 100,000 this year alone.”

The nonprofit kitchen survives on donations and grants and receives food from places such as Good Shepherd Food Bank, Winslow Community Cupboard, NorthCenter Foods, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, and Dragonfly Farms, located in Belgrade.

The kitchen is planning a large fundraiser for March, separate from the capital campaign, Caron said, with the goal to garner money for a walk-in freezer that costs between $75,000 and $80,000, a generator, new bathrooms, flooring and a freight elevator to move food from the basement storage area to the main floor.

Caron expects the off-track betting parlor will move out in three or four months, then the kitchen will expand the dining room into that area. Office space will be developed for mental health and substance use professionals to meet privately with people.

“And my dream would be to be able to have a dentist and a primary care physician come in and help us set up an office designed for them to provide clinical services to our community,” Caron said.

FEEDING HUNDREDS, DAILY

Dean Dolham, president of the soup kitchen’s board of directors who volunteers as a chef there, said 50-60 people typically come in for lunch, which runs from 11:20 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and takeout meals average 450 a day. About 50 people typically eat breakfast, which is served 8-11 a.m.

On Nov. 12, Dolham and other volunteers had cooked 50 chickens — about 275 pounds — to turn into a chicken and gravy meal with rice, green beans and bacon, and stuffing.

“I try to target between 450 and 500 meals,” Dolham said.

Leftovers are typically taken to the nearby Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter or the local food bank, and nothing goes to waste, he said.

Buying the building will be beneficial in many ways, including that it will be easier to pursue grants, Dolham said. Sometimes organizations are hesitant to help fund a walk-in freezer, for instance, if a soup kitchen doesn’t own the building it is in.

“It gives us stability, kind of our forever home,” Dolham, 67, said. “We don’t have to worry about somebody coming in and buying it. We just control our own destiny.”

He said officials also are talking with electricians about installing heat pumps, something they might not be able to do if they didn’t own the building.

Dolham is one of about 80 volunteers who helps at the soup kitchen. Caron said 16 to 20 more volunteers will be needed when it opens as a warming center starting Monday, at which time it will stay open until 4:30 p.m. She asked that those wanting to volunteer call her at 207-859-3063. Donations may be made online at WatervilleAreaSoupKitchen.org.

AN INCREASING NEED

Dining room manager Jessica Beedy, 57, has volunteered at the soup kitchen 1 1/2 years and said she has witnessed more and more people needing help.

“I think it was kind of a slow-but-sure increase starting last spring,” Beedy said.

Caron estimates 30% of those who frequent the soup kitchen are unhoused. The majority are underhoused, elderly and veterans, she said.

David Phyll, 57, is there just about every day and tries to help new people feel at home. He also steps in if someone is agitated or angry.

“I’m a veteran so I can relate to everyone here,” Phyll said Nov. 12 in the dining room. “I sit down and if someone is angry, I can get them to calm down. What’s important is, you know how to deal with them. You’ve got to have patience. They’re respectful to me. Some people are homeless. I used to live at the homeless shelter and worked as a cook.”

Phyll likes to draw and his artwork is displayed around the soup kitchen’s dining room and signed by his nickname, “Mackymann.”

“I was a lieutenant in the Marines and served in Iraq,” he said. “I ended up with cancer, and I had to leave after about six years. I’ve been cancer-free for six years.”

He said his fiancee and son died in a vehicle accident involving a drunken driver. He had a difficult time and lived on the streets for 1 1/2 years, he said. Drawing, writing poetry, helping his peers at the soup kitchen and delivering meals to veterans keeps him busy and useful, he said.

For Caron, who volunteers 50 to 60 hours a week at the soup kitchen, the work is a calling.

“I feel like God put me here,” she said. “I’m here for the community. It’s not in the easy spaces. It’s in the difficult spaces. When you get to care for people — many of them are in the lowest places in their life — and you get to sit with them and help them and be with them. What an honor that is. They’re not going to stay there forever.”