18 | JULY 28 • 2022
OUR COMMUNITY
C
ongregation Shir
Tikvah Sisterhood’s
Tikkun Olam Soup
Troupe has formed a part-
nership with the Hospitality
House Food Bank, located in
Commerce.
The food bank not only
provides food to the under-
privileged community
three times a week, but also
diapers, household prod-
ucts and more. Because
of the food bank’s help, the
Soup Troupe now provides
its friends at Royal Oak First
United Methodist Church
(ROFUM) items they can use
in their daily lunch program
like fruit cups and individual
crunchy snacks, and much
more.
The Soup Troupe, consist-
ing of seven women from
CST Sisterhood’s Tikkun
Olam committee, meet in the
CST kitchen every other week
to create a hot meal from
donations they receive. The
finished product is delivered
to ROFUM for distribution to
the homeless and underprivi-
leged. ROFUM has been feed-
ing approximately 50 people,
five days a week for the last
22 years.
For the six years the Soup
Troupe has been cooking,
they have depended on the
ladies in the group or congre-
gants to donate items. That
sustained them on its own
until the Troupe received
a cold call letter from the
Hospitality House Food Bank
in December 2021 that intro-
duced themselves, explained
who they serve and men-
tioned they have extra food.
The food bank asked if they
would be interested, and Karen
Sage, chair of CST Sisterhood
Tikkun Olam, hopped on the
opportunity immediately.
“They’ve been providing us
with the raw materials so to
speak, the cans of beans and
the fresh produce, and we do
the prepping and cooking and
then we give our food to the
church,” Sage said. “And they
also have things they donate
that we send directly to the
church like fruit cups, bags
of chips and juice boxes that
they give the guests at their
church every day.”
Once a one-to-one rela-
tionship between the Soup
Troupe and the church has
now become a three-way rela-
tionship.
“If (the food bank) has
five pounds of turkey lunch
meat they got from Forgotten
Harvest, they’ll call me and
I’ll say to hang on to it, we’ll
be right over to pick it up.
Then we give it to the church,
and they use it to make their
sandwiches. It’s just a win-
win for everybody,” Sage said.
“Recently, we got three cases of
tomatoes. We prep and freeze
them so when we make chili
or something, we have them.
Nothing is going to waste.”
Sage believes the “sister-
hood” name goes beyond the
synagogue.
“With us cooking for the last
half a dozen years, we really
have become like sisters,” she
said. “
A couple of ladies have
lost their husbands; a couple of
them have had serious health
issues over the last couple
years. We cook for each other
in times of need, and we just
really have a tight group.”
The Soup Troupe also con-
tributes hats, scarves, hand-
sewn masks, foot warmers,
backpacks and more to the
folks ROFUM serves.
It means a lot to Sage and
the Soup Troupe to be able to
expand partnerships like this
and further help the under-
privileged.
“No matter what your
religious beliefs may be and
what community you’re in,
our basic and common goal is
just to help those in need,” she
said.
Congregation Shir Tikvah
Sisterhood partners with
Hospitality House Food Bank.
The Soup
Troupe
DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER
ABOVE: Mary Jane Faso and Sheila Henkle
prep donated vegetables. RIGHT: Sue Korn
and Karen Sage clean donated kale.
Soup Troupe members Sue Korn, Mary Jane Faso, Maryann Nagel,
Anne Alden, Sheila Henkle and Karen Sage. (Joan Firestone not pictured.)