Sun sets on Sunday Soup & Sandwiches program in Greenfield

Maria Paquette, Erica Burns and Sharon Melnik fill cups with Paquette’s homemade minestrone soup at the Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew in Greenfield. FOR THE RECORDER/AALIANNA MARIETTA

By AALIANNA MARIETTA, For the Recorder
GREENFIELD — Every Sunday morning like clockwork, volunteers with the “Sunday Soup & Sandwiches” program hand homemade soup, sandwiches and snacks through the windows at the Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew to a long line of waiting visitors.
Now, after five years of feeding residents in need, the Sunday Soup & Sandwiches program will end in October. The resource’s lead cook Maria Paquette and volunteer Erica Burns said the decision was difficult, but necessary.

The program was created in March 2020 to offer an alternative to a different free meals program that had been available on the Greenfield Common, but that had been canceled amid COVID-19 health safety restrictions. Paquette started the program at her church with 50 prepared meals. Five years later, the group reached an average of 255 meals each week in 2024.
While church leaders felt they could offer a temporary program to fill the void until the health safety restrictions subsided and other programs reopened, they didn’t anticipate how long the pandemic would last or how great the need for the meals would be.

The program relies on its rotation of 40 unpaid volunteers, and has primarily been funded by one-time grants, the parish’s budget and a small group of donors.

While about seven people serve the line of visitors every Sunday starting at 11:30 a.m., passing out soup, sandwiches, fruit, granola bars, Hershey’s kisses and a beverage to each guest, the organization’s work starts early in the week. As chief purchaser, Paquette tracks down the best deals from stores like Food City in Turners Falls.
“The shopping she does is a part-time job,” said Burns, who often snaps pictures of grocery sales for Paquette.
When Paquette runs the week’s meal and cooks turkey soup, for example, she cooks four turkeys on Thursday, prepares the stock on Friday and stirs the soup together on the weekend. Paquette shoulders the 15 hours of preparation each week while balancing the demands of a full-time job.

On a recent Sunday morning, she zipped to the church without a wink of sleep.

“I work nights,” she explained. “I drove home, I walked my dogs and I came here.”

Without sufficient funding and volunteers, “We just can’t sustain it,” Paquette said, stirring a pot of minestrone soup. “It was only supposed to be a stopgap until something else happened, and then nothing else happened.”
According to an announcement from the Rev. Heather Blais, rector at the Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew, detailing the plans to end Sunday Soup & Sandwiches, program leaders would meet every six months to determine if they felt they could continue with the meals for the next six months. During this conversation in the fall, it became clear that core leaders would need to step back in the year ahead. This change, combined with the increasing demand for meals, the parish’s limited capacity, concern for volunteer burnout and the ongoing challenge of funding, led to the decision to end the program.

However, the church will continue to offer Second Helpings, a free community meal offered each Monday at 4:30 p.m. in partnership with Deerfield Academy. This program will celebrate its 25th anniversary this spring.

Many regular visitors rely on the soup and sandwich they get at the Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew. Although the Salvation Army and the Franklin County Community Meals Program offer free meals during the week, and Stone Soup Café offers pay-what-you-can meals on Saturdays, the Sunday Soup & Sandwiches program represents the only free meal service available on Sundays in Greenfield.

Greenfield resident Ed Giard has waited in line every Sunday for a year.
“I’m not homeless, but for people who are, it’ll make it difficult to find food on Sundays,” he said.

A regular for four years now, Tony Allen grew up in Turners Falls and moved to Greenfield for resources like Sunday Soup & Sandwiches. Currently “in between places,” he said he recognized many familiar faces in line.

“I know everybody,” Allen claimed.

Some people in line also deliver meals to friends and family. On Paquette’s own drive home, she drops off 12 meals.

Although volunteers aim to serve food for about 45 minutes, they hand out food until the line ends.

“If they ring the bell and we’re still in the building, we will get them some food,” Burns said.

“We’ve never sent anyone away hungry,” Paquette said proudly. She remembered two young sons in line last year who asked for an extra cup of hot chocolate. While their father discouraged them and shook his head, Paquette gave them the steaming cups. She recalled him thanking her and adding, “I’m not sure what we would do without this.”

“It is very much needed in the community, and it’s so hard to say, ‘We have to stop, it’s just too big,’” Burns stressed.

She and Paquette say they hope more volunteers will step up and another organization will fill the Sunday gap.

“That’s really our biggest wish,” Paquette said.