By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
EVERY week, Gloria Anderson sees a need in Doveton.
Gloria is one of several Cornerstone Contact Centre volunteers who run a soup kitchen every Thursday at the Doveton Baptist Church for the area’s homeless and underprivileged.
The Doveton ‘Stone Soup Lunch’, as it is known, was started by the Cornerstone volunteers at Christmas time in 2009.
“In Doveton there was no free meal program in the area and there was a need,” Gloria said.
“There used to be a program but it shut down, so there was nothing around Doveton.
“I think there is a huge need, I keep hearing about it – even teachers from Doveton schools tell me that kids come to school hungry, they haven’t had breakfast.
“There is a need for this program.”
The origins of the Stone Soup Lunch can be traced back to a wartime fable. Gloria’s not sure which war, but she speaks of harrowed and starving travellers walking through a desolated town looking for food.
“The name itself is from a world war story.
“It was, basically, a couple of travellers going through a village and they knocked around asking for food, but everyone was scarce for food,” Gloria said.
“Some say the travellers were gypsies, some say they weren’t, but everyone in the town would shut their doors, no one offered them food.
“So the travellers walked to the town square and put a stone in boiling water.
“People asked what they were doing and the travellers responded that they were making soup.
“Soon everyone volunteered to put something into the soup, carrots or some other vegetable, and at the end of the day they had a big hearty meal.
“Then one of the travellers took out the stone and gave it to whoever was in charge of the village.
“It brought the village together; everyone brought something from their home.”
While Gloria said that there are no stones in the Doveton lunch soups, she and the other volunteers are there every morning preparing a similarly hearty meal for the community, members of which start to arrive just before noon every Thursday.
“It’s been good – we try to do a big roast once a month, too,” she said.
“And the people respond positively.
“This week there was a gentleman there who said sometimes this was his only good meal for the week.
“It’s a full meal. This week we had rice, cooked beef curry and salad.
“And there’s always free coffee and tea.”
The idea of creating a “family” is what keeps bringing Gloria and the other volunteers back to the Doveton Baptist Church to serve lunch.
“It’s creating a family, it’s giving people a sense of belonging,” she said.
“I think we can walk past a homeless man and not think about him and, at the end of the day they need to be loved and they need to be accepted, to feel human again.
“It’s recognising they are fellow human beings.”
The Cornerstone Contact Centre is a faith mission run in the heart of Dandenong, combining a drop-in facility with welfare assistance for disadvantaged people living in the area.
“I’ve been with Cornerstone for around eight and a half years,” Gloria, who is originally from northern India, said.
“When I moved to Australia I moved to Dandenong and I’d already done some work back home working with homeless people, so when I came to Dandenong I saw the need and wanted to get involved locally.
“We had heard that there was a local soup kitchen so we literally walked in one Saturday night and started helping out and the rest is history.”
For more information, visit www.cornerstonecentre.com.au.
