COSTA MESA : A New Snag for Soup Kitchen

The Someone Cares soup kitchen, which had to move last year from Rea Community Center to South Coast Christian Church because of angry neighbors, may now have to pick up and move again.

The Rev. Bob Ewing, pastor of the 100-member congregation, said the church at 792 Victoria St. is up for sale, leaving the kitchen’s future uncertain.

There are no buyers for the church yet, so there’s no way of telling whether a new occupant will allow the kitchen to remain for free, said Someone Cares founder and director Merle Hatleberg.

She said she hopes to remain at the site at least through the holiday season.

“It’s just so needed, with so many people laid off,” she said.

The soup kitchen opened in 1986 at the Rea center, but it was forced to move three years later when neighbors complained about the homeless and poor it attracted.

Inside the kitchen recently, men and women slowly streamed in to pick up plates of chicken tacos, muffins, salad and a bowl of vegetable soup ladled from a 30-gallon pot. Manager Jack Moriarty greeted the people walking in for their afternoon meal.

On an average day, Moriarty said, the facility will serve 146 people. On Thursday, the crowd was smaller because, he said, many of the poor who regularly find their way to the kitchen get a fresh supply of food stamps and welfare checks at the beginning of the month.

As she talked in the kitchen, Hatleberg greeted each new visitor with, “Hi, how are you?”

“I try to train my volunteers to make them feel like they’re wanted,” she said about the poor. “They really don’t get too many smiles during the day. We try to treat them like human beings because that’s what they are.”

Hatleberg helps with the daily operation, buying paper plates, plastic-foam bowls and paper towels at discount stores. Several groceries contribute fruit, vegetables, desserts and other food, she said.

The lunch crowd filled several long tables in the dining room. Some people retreated to two tables outside.

Hatleberg said that if the kitchen must move, its new location should be in a commercial area. She prefers Costa Mesa because that is where she already has support from stores and volunteers. Those she feeds also live nearby. She has also considered starting “soup kitchen No. 2” in San Clemente, where she lives.

But for now, Hatleberg still meets the daily demands of feeding the needy who come to Someone Cares five days a week.

“I’ll be doing it until I make a pot of soup, open my door and there’s no one there,” she said with a smile. “That’s when I feel my job will be done.”