WATERVILLE (AP) — A Maine soup kitchen that’s been serving up meals to the Waterville area’s homeless for more than three decades may be forced to close because of fewer donations.
Director Dick Willette said Monday he had planned to close the kitchen in the basement of Sacred Heart Church for good Sept. 1, but a recent plea for donations has generated enough money to pay the trash removal and phone bills.
What happens next is up in the air.
“Nobody feels any worse than I do,” Willette told the Morning Sentinel.
His budget for 2011 was $25,000, but he took in only $22,000 and spent $28,000.
“We’re caught in the recession,” said Willette, who said he put in $3,800 of his own money.
The companies that used to regularly donate food and money have stopped because of the recession, he said.
The kitchen opened in 1980 and serves 75 to 120 people every day.
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