Happy to help
Written by Mark E. Lett
Photos by Rob Kaufman
Like many good ideas, Hilton Head’s soup kitchen movement started small and grew. And grew.
And continues to grow.
And like many worthwhile efforts food assistance on the island and the Lowcountry can trace its roots to individuals with curiosity, concern and a commitment to helping.
The area’s fistful of soup kitchens and food pantries had their beginning when an Illinois transplant to Hilton Head left her comfort zone to visit with a small group of hard-luck folks who routinely gathered near her neighborhood.
Charlee Pullon viewed them with caution. But sensing they needed assistance, she wondered to herself how she could help.
The answer, she said, came through prayer.
“I’m a big prayer person,” she said. “I prayed and I prayed. And an answer came to my heart that said: ‘I will watch over you.’”
With that, she approached the group and was met with suspicion by a man who asked: “What do you want?”
“It’s not what I what,” Pullon responded. “It’s what I want to do for you.”
She joined a small group at a picnic table. Pullon recalls telling them, “The Lord put the idea in my heart.” They began talking about needs, wants, bad breaks, hard times – and possible solutions.
One thing led to another and evolved into the notion for a sustainable way to help feed the needy. The result: The island’s first soup kitchen — Grateful Hearts – opened Nov. 3, 2010, at Holy Family Catholic Church.
Operating from kitchen space provided by the church, Grateful Hearts started small and with little fanfare. On its inaugural day, the kitchen served 18 people.
Pullon said church members and leaders pledged early on to support the initiative “100 percent.”
“Church people helped, other volunteers came forward,” she said. “Each week, more and more came.”
In its formative years, Grateful Hearts truly was a “soup kitchen,” with volunteers bringing pots and kettles of homemade soups. As time passed and enthusiasm solidified, the operation expanded to include hot meals.
Mealtime was preceded, Pullon said, by “a circle of prayer,” with attendees holding hands in camaraderie and reflection.
With Grateful Hearts setting a precedent, soup kitchens, food pantries and other programs emerged to serve needy islanders.
Suellen Manning, a longtime volunteer coordinator of the Grateful Hearts program, said more than a half-dozen soup kitchens are up and running. And while they operate independently from one another, the programs are arranged to cover different days, times and locations throughout the week.
The island’s assault on food insecurity includes a mix of volunteers, donors, prepared meals, food giveaways, pantries and home-delivered meals. A sampling:
• The Deep Well Project manages a “Wish List” for its pantry operations, encouraging donations of food, soap, lotion, shampoo, deodorant and toothpaste. Visitors to the site (deepwellproject.org) can make selections that range from bags of white rice to canned meats, cereals, mac and cheese, taco kits and more.
• Backpack Buddies of Hilton Head collects and supplies fresh produce bags to youth organizations, apples and oranges for after-school tutoring and weekend food packs for middle school students.
• Second Helpings in one year provided the equivalent of 2.7 million meals to 51 area food pantries, soup kitchens, family and senior programs, according to its website.
• Sandalwood Community Food Pantry provides strategies and assistance to help families “make ends meet by supplementing their monthly groceries in times of need.”
The Sandalwood website (sandalwoodfoodbank.com) describes its role as a “mission to nourish the bodies, minds and spirits of all who hunger.”
The Rev. Dr. Nannette Pierson, founder and director, wrote that her desire for Sandalwood “was to serve those who hunger for food, water and a renewed spirit. Why? Because hunger hurts and hunger pains deny dignity, deplete energy and one’s potential.”
Manning said soup kitchen volunteers have skillfully adapted to changing conditions, especially those presented by the COVID pandemic.
When concern about the deadly disease caused Grateful Hearts to suspend in-person meal service, volunteers adjusted with an alternative plan to make sandwiches available through “tailgate” distribution, she said. Volunteers would prepare and wrap the goods for a bag-lunch distribution from their vehicles.
“It really was pretty remarkable,” she said. “People kept making sandwiches, two to a bag, and dropping them off. People kept coming and coming to keep it going.”
The idea of serving bag lunches outdoors took off, Manning said.
“On the first day, we served 44 bags,” she said. “By the next week, it was 111.”
“And the people kept coming,” she said, noting that the number of lunches distributed quickly rose to more than 250.
Time and again, Manning said, volunteers came up with ways to assist.
“One of the ladies who came to us early on in the pandemic was a hairdresser,” she said. “She, of course, couldn’t work so she was going to people’s houses and cutting their hair. She mentioned that many of her clients could use a lunch, too. So, for many months, she would take 10 or 12 lunches to clients each week.”
Grateful Hearts also responded to difficulties when a malfunctioning grease trap closed the kitchen at the Holy Family location. A helping hand was nearby, however, and Grateful Hearts merged with a soup kitchen operated by St. Andrew By-the-Sea.
The linkup (now under the SABTS Soup Kitchen banner) took effect Jan. 1 and was described by Tom Sharp of St. Andrew as “a wonderful and exciting plan … to pool our leadership, volunteers and financial resources under an effort to better serve our families and neighbors.”
To Manning, the merger represents another gratifying step forward in the island’s campaign to combat hunger.
“We were really happy to do that,” she said, adding that the administrative support provided by St. Andrew clears the path for “us worker bees to be with the people and help them out.”
It also demonstrates, she said, the “generosity and kindness of the people who call this home.”
Sharp said the merger has given additional momentum to anti-hunger efforts.
From the Celebration Center at St. Andrew, volunteers put forward meals and food twice weekly for those in need. Hot meals for take-out and bag lunches delivered to island service workers flow from the center.
The center is also the site of a so-called “Harvest Table” for distribution of fresh food and canned goods to “those who come through the door,” Sharp said.
Available on the second Friday of each month, he said, are hot meals donated by a growing number of local restaurants.
“It’s been amazing,” he said. “I’ve yet to be told ‘No’ by a restaurant.”
Manning said pandemic experience revealed that people were happy to be able to help.
“Volunteers set up assembly lines in their homes to package sandwiches and food to hand out,” she said. “It all kept growing and going to this day.
“The spirit of volunteers and donors and others restored my faith in the goodness in this world.”
