Rarden is one of the small villages making up Scioto County. In fact, its last reported population was 146 and 566 for the township, in the last election, only around 225 voters were active. Outside of the Rarden Whitetail Deer Festival, the area stays pretty quiet in its beautiful corner of the county. That’s why it is shocking that over 100 individuals in that area visit the Rarden Daily Bread, daily, to commune with community and enjoy a free meal.
The Rarden Daily Bread is a soup kitchen founded and organized by Rarden Mayor Ron Syroney’s wife, Pam.
Recently, the group accepted support from the Scioto County Commissioners in the amount of $36,500, which goes a long way in guaranteeing their services continue and grow.
“By receiving this grant from commissioners, it means that we can provide a healthy meal to anyone that comes, we can buy some of the things that we normally can’t afford to make our meals, we use what we have and some of use ingredients from our own kitchen to complete the meals. We now can afford the food and ingredients, spices, breads, buns and desserts that adds up quickly” Syroney said. “We buy to go trays for every day to get these meals to the homes that need them. That is a very costly part of our daily preparation. With this grant, our problem has been resolved. We want to thank the commissioners for thinking of us when they have an opportunity to be part of our mission.”
The group began two weeks before closures resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 after Syroney claims she felt a call to action.
“This began, because I started having these dreams about children going hungry and I felt God was leading me in this direction,” Syroney recalled. “I told him to find someone else. However, one day, on my way to church, after not being able to sleep and rest, it came to me that there are a lot of little children who cry before they go to sleep, because they’re hungry. In one dream I kept having, parents were telling their children, ‘I’m sorry, but go to sleep and maybe we can find food tomorrow.’”
Syroney said the average number of participants at first was 25 and it was a rocky go.
“I didn’t know anything about starting a soup kitchen,” Syroney said. “When I started talking to people, they told me to run the kitchen only one or two days. I couldn’t do that. What about the other days? Do we send the kids to bed hungry?”
Syroney began sending out letters and talking to churches, building connections to get the kitchen launched.
“We talked for months, but I finally said let’s pick a date and let’s start,” Syroney said. “We started cooking out of our own kitchens, buying food ourselves, and learning how to make it happen.”
Two weeks after starting, the pandemic shut everything down, but the Rarden Daily Bread did not. They masked up and handed out food at the door for people to take home with them. Since then, they’ve not missed a day.
The Daily Bread volunteers have a few years of operation under their belts now and feeds a meal seven days a week, even on holidays, weekends, and during inclement weather at the Anna Jean Gardner Senior Community Center, 1693 Main Street, between 4 and 5:30 p.m.
Syroney said she never knows what to expect with attendance, but they’re always prepared to feed the hungry.
“Today, we served 103, but, yesterday, we served 138,” Syroney said in a previous interview while discussing attendance. “We never know how many we are going to get, but the average is 125.”
The group also sends meals to homebound individuals.
“Some people, on their way home from work or to church, will stop by and take meals to neighbors and the elderly,” Syroney said. “It takes a lot of volunteers to make this all happen, and I honestly can’t even tell you how many we have, because we do have people who will shuttle meals and I consider them a volunteer, too. They’re taking their own time and using their own gas to feed people. We have floater volunteers, four different shifts, and drivers; I always tell people that it takes a community.”
The founder says the feeling of service is great and it has had a massive impact on her.
“I probably feel better serving than they feel receiving the meal,” Syroney said. “I feel the people in that kitchen, doing the mission that we are doing, are greater blessed than those we serve.”
The volunteers now have years under their belts, partial funding for the kitchen, connections with organizations like Freestore Foodbank, and Syroney says she isn’t slowing down.
“I feel like it is needed now more than when it was revealed to me,” Syroney explained. “We’ve not closed our doors not even one day. Not with holidays or weather—even if the electric is out, we find a way to get the meals hot and served.”
The founder says the feeling of service is great and it has had a massive impact on her.
“I probably feel better serving than they feel receiving the meal,” Syroney said. “I feel the people in that kitchen, doing the mission that we are doing, are greater blessed than those we serve.”
While the recent funding will help the mission continue through summer, the group continues to ask for donations to keep them going strong. Additionally, they are working on developing a new kitchen they will be able to serve out of in the future.
Reach Joseph Pratt at (740) 353-3101, by email at [email protected], © 2024 Portsmouth Daily Times, all rights reserved.
