Hatu MIKUI “Come and Eat” Soup Kitchen
Recently I met with our wonderful volunteers who are cooking breakfast to feed our poor elderly. At this time, approximately 20 to 35 are being served breakfast. These are the neediest people – some living in homes without running water or bathrooms, others living on the street or in the woods.
These are the forgotten people.
We were very fortunate to connect with Unorcac – an Indigenous run facility to help the poor and empower Indigenous women for a better life. We share a very small kitchen with an Indigenous helper to prepare breakfast to serve between 7:30 and 9:00am. Unfortunately we are serving our elderly under a carport area without a full roof, folding tables and very few chairs. People are sitting on a concrete ledge to eat. Most mornings it is quite cool to eat in this environment.
The best meal we can prepare is a boiled egg, bread rolls, cheese and a piece of fruit. We try to serve a nutritious hot drink every morning. We have given some carryout to be taken to homes of elderly who cannot walk to the kitchen because of a physical or mental disability.
Our goal is to attach another kitchen to the present kitchen . Unorcac serves lunch to paying clientele to support their building and staff. The existing kitchen is quite small – 3 people is a crowd!
Lunch is started at 9:30am and we have to be out of the kitchen by then. Of course, an additional kitchen would be shared with the Indigenous people as needed for their functions. The main dining rooms is used for the paying customers.
Step ONE of our plan to help the poor elderly is the addition of a kitchen with equipment and turning the carport into an enclosed dining room.We need to enclose the open carport for warmth and have adequate seating to sufficiently serve these poor street people. Unorcac will have the village men with construction skills to do the work. We will provide the materials.
The elderly are the forgotten people in this community. With the Holidays approaching we would like to give each person a small Christmas gift. Through donations we could provide a food package with a warm scarf that would be deeply appreciated. Last year we distributed warm scarves with some treats to about 20 elderly. Several of them cried as they had not received a gift in many years.
Many of you have helped with supporting our Morales Chupa school in the past and have continued to help Ecuador Project Hope foundation.
Wishing you many blessings,
Micky Enright
Founder of Ecuador Project Hope
My email is mickyenright@gmail.com
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This is a work of love from myself and all the wonderful volunteers.
Read on for a touching article by Lulie, one of our volunteers:
THE LIGHT SHINES by way of the Hatu MIKUI
In the small beautiful town of Cotacachi, Ecuador, well-known for its leather goods and location between two Volcanoes, exists a large population of street people.
You see them begging on leather street, walking barefoot on rocky dirt roads, and picking through trash for food.
They are invisible~~ doesn’t anyone see them? Doesn’t anyone care for them? Where is their help?
The local elderly care center requires money that they unfortunately don’t have. They seem resigned, like the many street dogs who often accompany them, to a life of living and sleeping on cold, often rainy streets, in doorways, or in dark abandoned sheds.
We have all seen them, but who will raise a light of hope for them, who will help?
THE LIGHT SHINES by way of the Hatu MIKUI “Come and Eat” soup kitchen.
The Indigenous community Center, UNORCAC, has opened their doors and provided a kitchen and dining room area right off the main market. Also, with the help of the local expats who have been volunteering for the past month, there is an average of 30 people per morning who receive a hot breakfast. A few people walk more than 2 miles to the kitchen to pick up meals to take back to their community for the elderly, disabled or shut-ins who cannot walk into town.
The expats of Cotacachi have helped a lot with their love and compassion for these people, and there is NO shortage of love returned by these very gracious, thankful souls! We work alongside the indigenous women at the center to feed the poorest citizens, and they also are very appreciative of our efforts. Our costs average $75 a week to feed 150 people!
Please help us to support this effort, as we are striving to venture forward by expanding into some of the indigenous communities around us. Our goal is to help these communities by providing the food, and enabling them to help the needy people in their own communities.
We expect great things to happen by providing these opportunities.
Lulie
