Costco pays for Rock Hill soup kitchen’s shopping spree

The daily menu at the Dorothy Day Soup Kitchen on Crawford Road in Rock Hill is getting a boost from Costco and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina.

A $5,000 grant from Costco allowed the food bank to send a “prize patrol” delivery truck to the soup kitchen Wednesday morning filled with a variety of canned goods and pasta.

“This means we won’t have to go shopping for awhile,” said Bev Carroll, one of the volunteers who started the Dorothy Day Soup Kitchen 29 years ago.

“This extends what we are able to do,” she said. “It’s just a shot in the arm.”

The soup kitchen usually provides a sandwich and soup to about 65 people a day who come to the kitchen between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. “We serve whoever comes to the door,” Carroll said.

The donation will allow the soup kitchen, located in Bannon Hall at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, to vary its menu, Carroll said. “Instead of peanut butter and jam we can do things a little different.”

Second Harvest Food Bank picked the soup kitchen as one of four grant recipients for the quarterly donation program. Previously, York County beneficiaries of the program have included the York County Council on Aging, which used its grant to hold an outside produce market in May 2014. Food for the produce market was donated by Food Lion.

Picking the Dorothy Day Soup Kitchen was especially important for Kay Carter, executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank and former head of the Department of Social Services in York County and former York town manager.

“Dorothy Day holds a special place in my heart,” Carter said Wednesday.

The soup kitchen normally “shops” at the Second Harvest Food Bank twice a month to fill its pantry.

With the Costco grant, the kitchen had the chance to shop from a list of store items. Each grant recipient placed its own custom order, Carter said. The Dorothy Day Soup Kitchen’s order filled about six pallets, which were delivered Wednesday morning.

Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina is a nonprofit that serves five counties in South Carolina and 14 in North Carolina.

This story was originally published July 22, 2015 at 8:51 PM with the headline "Costco pays for Rock Hill soup kitchen’s shopping spree."