Ashton Christopher

Fall Community Rotation Cycle A

Covenant Soup Kitchen

B. Goals and Objectives

The goal was to assist Grow Windham in making steps toward the overall goal to
improve the food insecurity and dietary health amongst the community of Windham. The way
that we assisted Grow Windham achieve their overarching goal was by appearing from 12:30-
4pm to hand out and collect at least 10 completely filled out surveys to be filled out from people
dinning in the soup kitchen. This helps Grow Windham answer their objectives to help succeed
in there overarching goal. Their small objectives include, finding out the communities perception
of food insecurity and how it can be improved, how dietary health can be improved, what drives
their dietary pattern, and collect at least 1 email a willing volunteers that will assist with there
overarching goals. Another objective that was created was to have each participant learn 1 thing
about affordable dietary nutrition and or food assistance programs. With this method their
overarching goal can be achieved because we are in the proper environment to gather
information from the food insecure of Windham, we educate them on affordable nutritious
shopping and we have survey in both English and Spanish which were the two primary
languages.

C. Assessment and Diagnosis

The Covenant Soup Kitchen is in the back of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. There was a
door located in the back and the soup kitchen was located directly up 1 flight of stairs. Once you
got up the stairs directly to your left there were offices, directly to your right was the kitchen, and
directly in front of you was the dining area that can sit about 60 people. It was a small soup
kitchen ran cafeteria style with a serving tray line. There were also small tables in the back
stacked with donated foods. The site was conducive to nutrition ed because it was the Soup
Kitchen where meals are provided to the community where the majority are the food insecure
people of Windham. The survey and the way the participants answered the survey allowed to
give a quick lesson on affordable ways to purchase fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, and grains. We
were not in a workable physical space for tabling. Because all the tables were being utilized. We
could have been put in that situation because the staff was unaware of us coming and they
seemed very busy, but they more than happy to let us help ourselves to find a space in the back.
All 42 utilizing the soup kitchens services were ages 18-59. Out of the 42 people there was 12
females and 30 males. Out of the 42 people 31 Hispanics and 11 non-Hispanics. Out of the non-
Hispanics there were 7 African Americans, and 4 Caucasians. As seen by the demographic data
the language barrier that I came across was Spanish. I would first approach in English and if they
did not speak English, I let them know that I had one in Spanish. While observing the room I did
not notice an overwhelming number of malnourished individuals (obese/underweight). In fact,
there were no participants that was underweight but there were plenty of participants that were
overweight.

D. Implementation: 
Once we got into the soup kitchen the staff didn’t know that we were coming so they just
told us to set up in the back. There wasn’t any space available to set up a whole table, so we just
put our box of rewards in the only space available in the back. Since we had to adjust my partner
and I planned for one person to stand in the back with the rewards. The person with the rewards
were to collect the completed surveys and look them over, educate and test the participants about
affordable nutrition ideas based on the survey that they just filled out, and hand out rewards for
completing the survey and learning something about affordable nutrition. The other partner was
to kindly engage with everyone dining in the soup kitchen and get them to fill out the surveys by
handing out the surveys, pencils, and instruct them on how to fill out the surveys in order to
receive a reward. 

E. Evaluation/Modifications
At first, arriving there was a little nerve racking because the staff was unaware of us
arriving and there wasn’t any available space to set up a table. Even though my partner and I had
to adjust and improvise the mission was successfully accomplished. All the objectives were
achieved, and had more than 10 surveys filled out, 1 volunteer, and everyone who filled out the
survey learned at least 1 thing about affordable nutrition. The survey was perfect for the setting
that we were in. The overarching goal, the setting, the questions on the survey, and the nutrition
education aligned perfectly which will make it easier for Grow Windham solve the issue of Food
insecurity in their neighborhood. I had issues with individuals not completing the entirety of the
survey and filling out both sides of the survey. I wish that I explained more on how to fill out the
survey and emphasized to fill out the entire survey, fill out the survey location at the top and the
date. It was important to explain how to fill out each question because there were people who
had trouble with their reading and reading comprehension. W brought expensive and large item
handouts like kitchen scissors, strainers, and can openers as rewards which might be the reason
why people were willing and asking to fill out a survey as well.

F. What Did I learn overall?

 
I learned that there are many people who are food insecure and even the food insecure has thought on
how to improve the issue of food insecurity. A lot of the ideas from the community were to increase the
funding for the soup kitchen and others included farm to table, community gardens, and affordable
ready to eat prepared meals. I realized what people’s top expenses were, if there expenses causes a
hardship in buying food, top food group purchases at the grocery store and why, reason for most visited
grocery store, and peoples willingness to volunteer. To answer the questions rent were people’s
greatest expense, there expenses did cause a hardship in buying food, and meat is the most purchase
food item, location/distance is the reason for most shopped grocery store. I also learned that food
insecurity can happen to anyone, no matter what your education level, cultural background, and age.
Next time I would be more vocal on how to correctly fill out the survey entirely.