Scraps from Sophia's Kitchen

Correction: The Nov. 16 post Sophia’s Kitchen serves anyone who is hungry incorrectly stated the number of meals that the ministry has served. The number of 84,995 meals served only applies to 2024. Since 2010, Sophia’s has served close to 1 million meals.

Editor's note: There was so much interesting content left over from my post on Sophia’s Kitchen that I felt duty-bound to share it mid-week. Here’s some of what was left on the virtual editing room floor. 

Sophia’s Kitchen's namesake

Sophia’s Kitchen is named in memory of a young Peoria girl who died in a car accident in the 2000s. Her parents were helped by staff at Sacred Heart Catholic Church through their grief and wanted to honor the memory of their daughter by helping the parish.

They raised about $10,000 toward improving the food outreach, but the parish needed to move the kitchen to another site several blocks away: a former parish hall at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church at 105 N. Richard Pryor Place, Peoria. That original $10,000 got the ministry there going, and Sophia’s grinning portrait has greeted the kitchen’s guests ever since.

Perfect background for the director

Program director Clair Crone combines a love for serving the poor with years of food service experience, office organizational skills, and retail experience to lead Sophia’s Kitchen. 

Her food service experience started at Holy Family Grade School in Peoria, where she volunteered in the lunch room. 

“Then they realized I had organizational skills, so I started doing more things with the school lunch program,” she said.

That required a food service license, but shortly after that Crone started working as a secretary at Sacred Heart. That license would come in handy when it was time for Father Bert Heise to retire: He asked Crone to oversee Sophia’s Kitchen. She quickly put some marketing skills she had gained from her parents’ retail business into practice and, with the help of other family members, raised awareness of Sophia’s Kitchen to start drawing in more donations, support, and volunteers.

Public relations from Willie York

Infamous Peoria street dweller Willie York was an early promoter of Sophia's Kitchen.

"The first month that we were here, it was like crickets," Crone said. "We stood here with food made and nobody coming to eat it. It really wasn't until Willie York found us, and he started bringing people. He wouldn't come in himself because he said he smelled too bad. And I'm like, yeah, whatever.

"So he did come in one time, and he's wearing a necklace of animal bones, you know. He said, 'What's for lunch?' And I said, 'I got chicken.' And he smiled, and I said, 'But it's boneless!'"

Crone paused to laugh at the memory.

"So he liked us, and he would bring the young kids, the newly homeless. I will say that about him: For all the trouble that he caused and everything, he did make sure that other people who were homeless were taken care of."

‘Giving that dignity back’

One of the goals of Sophia’s Kitchen is to always treat its guests with dignity. 

“It’s important that people understand that some of the weird things that you think of with homeless people or poor people, there’s a reason why they’re doing it,” Crone said. “It’s a horrible situation to be in, but we’re just giving that dignity back.”

One guest on crutches who had a backpack full of clothes showed up at the kitchen when they were giving away Christmas baskets one year, she said. He realized he couldn’t carry the basket and then also couldn’t fit the contents into his backpack unless he removed some of the clothes in it. He started throwing away his clothing or putting it on.

“But that was the only way that he could manage to carry things,” Crone said, “and I’ve never had to make that choice of whether I’m going to keep a sweater or have a can of fish.”

She found out early on that the people they serve value simple things like toilet paper, which one woman considered a great Christmas gift. 

Even just having a choice of food overwhelms some guests.

“One of the first people we served at the window rolled up in a wheelchair, and the window worker asked him, ‘What would you like to eat today?’” Crone said. “He started to answer, but he just got overwhelmed and started crying. And when he finally caught himself up, you know, he says, ‘Nobody’s ever asked me that before. They just hand me food, and they tell me to go away and go eat it.’ And we’re like, ‘No, you come inside, and you eat it, and you tell us: Do you like fish, or do you like beef, or would you like to have a sandwich?’

“We were able to give that little piece of humanity back to him.”

Sources of donations

Donations come in to Sophia’s Kitchen from individuals, Midwest Food Bank, churches, and businesses.

“This week we had donations from a bridal shop,” Crone said. “They did a promotion where if you brought in canned food, you got money off of your bridal gown. We had a chiropractor who collected at his practice, and then they came and they helped us with our Friday pantry.”

Breaking bread

Sophia’s Kitchen provides meals for other organizations that help people with life issues in the Peoria area, like JOLT Foundation, which helps people who have substance-abuse problems, and LULA, which helps the unhoused.

Other groups with which Sophia’s Kitchen works are Brighter Days Ahead, Trillium Place, The Living Room, and sometimes Phoenix.

“They have programs that work with homeless people, people with mental illness, drug addictions, alcohol addictions,” Crone said. "They do day programs for them, and one of the ways that they're able to keep people at their place for the day is by giving them food. So anytime you are breaking bread with someone, you are sharing a connection. This is a way to give them a little bit more grace time. We're all about making tomorrow a better day. If I can keep you alive today, then you can work on getting better tomorrow.”