A secure storage room designed for Soupe Saint-Eustache

"Soupe Saint-Eustache is a fine outreach project for people in difficulty, whose numbers are growing steadily due to the present economic crisis."

Teresa Santamaria

The nonprofit Soupe Saint-Eustache was created in autumn 1984 by Father Denis Perrot, in sympathy with the distressed people of the neighborhood. Its principle is simple, to serve, every evening in winter (December to March) and to all those who come to the church square, a hot soup and a meal bag for tomorrow's lunch, and also to distribute hygiene products once per week. When it started out, the soup kitchen distributed a few dozen meals, but today, more than 30 000 meals, or more than 250 per day on average, are handed out in the winter season!

Insufficient storage capacity

Given the increase in demand (40% since 2006), existing storage capacity is insufficient. A space in the basement of the Saint-Eustache church already accommodates all the equipment, assembled and dismantled upon each campaign. This space, which is accessible by ladder and rope, makes storage complicated and especially dangerous for the volunteers of the Soupe. The nonprofit therefore wants today to use this space daily to store, in addition to equipment, non-perishable foods (canned foods, hygiene products) and to install deep freezers there. And to secure its access, the solution is a freight elevator.

The grant from the Veolia Foundation will be used to buy this freight elevator.