Cornerstone Community Kitchen has placed a “Free Meals” banner on the lawn of the Princeton United Methodist Church at the corner of Nassau Street and Vandeventer Avenue every Wednesday since June 6, 2012. It has not missed a week, even on Christmas Day and the Fourth of July.
While many people do not associate Princeton with hunger, it is present, as volunteers like West Windsor residents Judy Miller and Annette Ransom know very well. And the community has its share of other challenges, including physical and emotional isolation, that can be offset in part by the communal dining experience.
By partnering with the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, the Cornerstone Community Kitchen (CCK) can provide meals to people who may not be able to make it to the locations in Trenton or Hightstown.
Judy Miller answered a request in the church bulletin two years ago for volunteers to help with decorating at the newly opened CCK. She works Tuesdays and Wednesdays to decorate the tables with flowers and to coordinate the clothes closet with free clothing that clients can select during the dinner. “Being involved with CCK for more than two years has been a very rewarding experience,” she says.
The oldest of four children, Miller was born in Philadelphia and raised in Boston. “When I was five years old I told my parents I wanted to be a nurse,” she says.
Her mother, a stay-at-home mom, was always active in the PTA. “That’s what you do,” says Miller. Her father, a corporate finance person, was always involved in the Rotary. “We moved around a lot as he got opportunities,” she says. “You grow where you are planted.”
A graduate of the University of Michigan, Miller earned her master’s degree at Boston University.
She moved to West Windsor 28 years ago with her husband and two sons. “Richard worked at Merrill Lynch in New York City, and we needed to live on the train line with a good school system,” says Miller. She worked under the umbrella of maternal and child health including many years at University Medical Center of Princeton. She took early retirement just prior to the hospital’s move to Plainsboro.
“I wanted to spend more time with the family and the grandchildren,” says Miller, who worked in neonatal intensive care unit for many years — and still keeps in touch with the nurses and doctors there. She creates custom baby name tags where the parents can fill in the first name of the child. “They seem to value the gift.” Through the years she has volunteered as homeroom mom, post prom committee, trip chaperone, team mom for soccer and swimming, and more. “If I had the skills I stepped in to volunteer to wear whatever hat is needed,” she says.
The Millers’ son, David, graduated from WW-P High School in 1997 and received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Duke University. He works in business strategy for a telecommunications company. Married, he has three sons (and a daughter on the way). Russell graduated from High School South in 2002, and also received a bachelor’s degree from Duke. He lives in Ossining, New York, with his wife and puppy, and works in risk analytics for J.P. Morgan. “It’s been a satisfying journey, and the kids flourished.”
Miller finds the Cornerstone Kitchen work equally satisfying. Volunteer jobs include assembling children’s breakfast bags, and making egg salad for take-home sandwiches. While TASK provides the entree for each meal, volunteers help prepare sides, set tables, and sort clothes for the free clothes closet. Panera provides desserts.
An average of 110 hot meals are served each week on a decorated table with a piano player in the background. Meals are served on an unconditional, no-questions-asked basis. Some come for the free food, some for the fellowship.
“We get to meet people from the community and work towards a common purpose,” says Miller. “People walk in and volunteer.” Volunteers and donors include high school students seeking to fulfill service requirements, teens seeking service for bar or bat mitzvah projects, Girl Scouts, students from Princeton University and Westminster Choir College, and members of the congregations of the Jewish Center of Princeton, Congregation Beth Chaim, St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church, Queenship of Mary Roman Catholic Church, and Princeton Friends Meeting.
Annette Ransom, another volunteer, has lived in West Windsor for the past 20 years and helps at CCK every week. She grew up in South Dakota farm country and studied English and organ at Dakota Wesleyan. She became a church organist and also served as assistant registrar at Westminster Choir College. Her husband, Jeff Ransom, is retired from Dow Chemical, and now is active as a singer with Princeton Pro Musica and Mostly Motets.
Their children are Sara, who attended MIT; Rachel, a 1998 WW-P graduate who went to the Eastman School of Music; and David, Class of 2001, a Boston University alumnus.
Another key player in the Cornerstone crew is Chris Orsini, a senior at High School North who began his involvement as part of a Scout project taken on by Troop 66. An Eagle Scout, Orsini has continued to volunteer at the kitchen on his own and has been made a non-voting member of the group’s board of directors.
There’s lots for everyone to do. In addition to the food program, the organization offers a free pop-up clothing store that is open every Wednesday. The Cornerstone Kitchen works with its next-door neighbor, Green Street Consignment shop, to accept clothing items that are not suitable for the commercial store. Donations are invited Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the church. They also welcome books for children, linens, towels, sheets, blankets, and small household items. Cornerstone Community Kitchen is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and does not deliver a religious message. “The greatest unexpected pleasure that’s come from our service has been the coming together of people from throughout the community to serve,” says Larry Apperson, founder of the project.
For the first year meals were served on paper plates with plastic utensils in the Sanford Davis Room, the church parlor with stained glass windows, because the kitchen — which did not meet health codes — was being constructed. Now the meals are prepared in an up-to-date catering kitchen and served on china plates in the renovated Fellowship Hall.
“All who come to our Cornerstone Community Kitchen will be guaranteed a warm greeting, someone to talk with if they like, and a satisfying meal,” says Jana Purkis-Brash, senior pastor. “This is not a soup kitchen. It’s a community kitchen where a single senior citizen can share a meal and fellowship, where a woman learning to speak English can come and practice with others who offer encouragement, where a student who is used to having dinner with his mom can come for a nutritious meal and tender care from a mom who is volunteering, or where a woman who is a nanny can bring the children she cares for and sit down and be served a meal after she has been on her feet all day.”
#b#Cornerstone Community Kitchen#/b#, Princeton United Methodist Church, Nassau at Vandeventer Street, Princeton. Wednesdays, December 24 and 31, 1 to 2:30 p.m. Free. 609-924-2613. www.princetonumc.org
