On our last trip to Costas Inn for “A Cup Of Soup Or Bowl Week” we met an old Dundalk friend who kept telling us that his wife is the real leader of Soup For The Soul, serving hot meals for local folks in need. Meet Stacy Nagel and Irene Mann, who told Nestor what makes their organization special in East Baltimore County and the impact it brings.
Nestor Aparicio discusses the second annual “Cup of Soup or Bowl” event, sponsored by the Maryland Lottery and Wise Markets, to support the Maryland Food Bank and Soup for the Soul in Dundalk. The initiative, led by Irene Mann and Stacy Nagel, serves 55-75 people weekly, reaching up to 200 household members. The program, which began in 1982, provides hot meals, groceries, and clothing. Despite challenges like COVID-19, they never shut down, adapting to safe distancing. The community’s generosity, including donations of clothing, toiletries, and food, sustains the program. They emphasize the importance of food waste reduction and the need for continued support.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Maryland lottery, Soup for the Soul, Dundalk, food pantry, hot meal, food donations, homeless support, volunteer efforts, community support, food waste, resource center, clothing donations, COVID response, local involvement, hunger relief
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Speaker 3, Stacy Nagel, Speaker 2, Irene Mann, Speaker 1
Nestor Aparicio 00:02
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 we’re tasked with Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. There’s nothing more Baltimore positive than what we’re about to do here this week. This is the beginning of a cup of soup or bowl. It is our second annual it is all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I have the magic eight ball. I’m rubbing the magic eight ball. We will look it back to Super Bowl stuff, the real football game, all the Justin Tucker drama, all that stuff. We’re down here. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery giving these away. Our friends at wise markets and wise conversations have sent this out, and I was inspired last year by several guests that are coming back onto the program, but we’re at cost to start the week. We’re going to be Cocos this week. We’re going to be failies this week. We’re going to be at State Fair this week, also on Friday, Cooper’s check the schedule out at Baltimore. Positive for the record, this is the first segment of the week, and it’s a cup of soup or bowl for our friends at the Maryland food bank. If you come by, donate, get some canned goods. We’re going to make sure they wind up in local places. And this is the kind of place that we’re trying to promote here, even though I’m here in Dundalk at Jimmy Thomas walked in old high school quarterback. But local people doing local things out on the street doesn’t matter who the president is, who the mayor is, who the governor. All that I’ve been at Dundalk my whole life. There’s always been people pitching in, helping people in Dundalk. And Irene man is here. It’s not want to call you Suzanne Nagel, because I know you. I went to school. Your sister in law, it’s Stacy Nagel, her husband David, was here last year. We had such a good time talking to him about Dundalk and memories in the street being here at Costas. And apparently last year you were sick. Is that right? I think, right, I was sick. And then this year I thought he was coming, because I thought that’s good. Now, all he kept talking about was, you used this isn’t my thing. It’s my wife’s thing. Suzanne’s like, Nah, it’s my it’s my sister in law’s thing and whatever. And you bring Irene here, give me your thing. Because, I mean, he and I went up last year catching up on old friends, I don’t know you. You young Dundalk people, the kids. You’re five years younger than me, so you I didn’t go to school. We weren’t in the same school together, right? We were not I was 85 you were
02:10
90. I was 90, yes.
Nestor Aparicio 02:12
And so since 1990 you have lived in Dundalk. And did this exist before you? Are you the founder? No,
Stacy Nagel 02:20
no. This existed way before me. It began in st Rita’s actually 1982 ish by Mary Catherine Haynes. The Haynes family and Mary Catherine Haynes made this happen until about 2014
Nestor Aparicio 02:35
David and I took over. Okay, so about 11 years ago, okay, you were made aware of this as a kid or no, yes,
Speaker 1 02:41
I actually volunteered there as a Catholic youth in giving back with you. And
Nestor Aparicio 02:49
I’m thinking 1982 You say that like 19. So I’m in high school. I’m probably 14, 1516, and I had a job at a paper called the eye. It was right on York way, right across from St. Rita is so I was parking my car in front of there. 8485 86 I had a job there, my first newspaper. Now, the eagle was up on Dundalk Avenue, further up past the royal farms, and then it moved into the square right around then in the 80s. But like st, Rita’s is, I mean, every girl ever wanted to kiss in the 80s went to St Reed is, you know what I mean, I’m a hollow bird guy. So st Rita is, everybody knew about that. Everybody knew
Irene Mann 03:27
about it. It was in the basement where the bingo sign is on the side of the wall. It was down in Carnes Hall in the basement.
Nestor Aparicio 03:33
Now, it started as a food pantry, or maybe no what it started
Speaker 2 03:37
out as a hot meal for people in need, or people who just needed
Nestor Aparicio 03:41
literally a soup kitchen, as we would call it, literally, literally soup kitchen. Soup for the Soul, done, dog for anybody out there, correct? And
Speaker 1 03:47
when Beth Steele started to close down, oh, wow, the need became more as a sustainable meal for the week. Maybe they didn’t want
Nestor Aparicio 03:56
seven days a week, not once a week.
Stacy Nagel 03:58
Always been once a week, okay, we continued that once a week, it’s a lot to do. Seven days a week, understand. And then they introduced groceries and fresh produce, and it became more it became more of just instead of a dinner, it became more of like five courses. Mary Catherine had five courses. And sometimes people couldn’t afford to go out to eat, and that’s where they went to eat.
Nestor Aparicio 04:21
So this is a woman in the neighborhood who just decided to feed people. Yeah, her parents, that’s it, 43 years ago. Yeah, you’re still here
Stacy Nagel 04:29
doing this work. We’re still here as an extension. First segment.
Nestor Aparicio 04:33
I mean, this is gonna be a long week. You know, last year I went live and I got all punchy the end of the week, because I’m like, by the time I got in and I think I saw your husband on Tuesday, and I think I bawled in that segment. But you know, just people that don’t have food, it’s it’s inconceivable to those of us sitting in Costas who do period, and you see it every day. Let me ask you this as a child, being a part of this in last 10 years, do you see the waves where? How many people. Do you usually feed? How many people are there?
05:04
Well, Irene is the
Nestor Aparicio 05:05
number person. Irene,
Irene Mann 05:09
I we take a kind of tally, and we have about anywhere from 55 to 75 people come in every week, and that includes some children. But we turn around, and also tally how many people are in their household, and that reaches upwards of 200 people. So
Nestor Aparicio 05:26
some people take some food home. They take, everyone takes, okay, so you’re not feeding anymore. You’re, you know, you do both. Okay. I’m trying to, I learned about this last year and from my audience, I’m a Dodo, right? I mean, I have, thank God, I’ve never shot, I’ve served in kitchens. I’ve never needed right? So to understand cooking for people, what they need, people that might not even have a stove at home, right? Like that, we we learn about different circumstances where people don’t know how to cook, pre preparation, elderly. You know, in a
Irene Mann 06:01
general sense, we also feed the homeless people that are living under a bridge. So they clearly need a pre cooked food. Of course, of course they need. They really look forward. Thanks for, you know, I’m a Dodo, yeah, they really, really look forward to that hot meal they get. And that’s some, sometimes it’s the only hot meal they get a week
Nestor Aparicio 06:20
in seeing this, and you said something about 55 to 75 does there come a point when hard times have happened in whenever the last 20 years you’ve been involved, 30 years you’ve been involved with this, where it gets overcrowded, COVID, different things where, like that, that you on the street feel and see the need of the community. And quite frankly, when things get harder, even for the hardest, right, that’s when people come to you, I would think, right,
Stacy Nagel 06:46
yeah, and we never shut down during COVID. So we remained open. We taught safe distancing, we set boxes up where now we can let them come in and pick what they want. Basically, we had boxes set up. And we had them set up on tables. We’d have 25 eight foot tables down, down Mornington road when we were at Mornington road, and they would come by and grab a box, and then our volunteer would be six foot back, and they’d replace the box, and step six foot back. We never stopped.
Nestor Aparicio 07:15
So you say words, what? Where was that? That was morning. Tim nonduk, okay, where are you?
Stacy Nagel 07:22
So we are now at six York way, and that’s the Dundalk Church of God. So when we were in st Alina, it’s a smaller building, we needed something bigger. So here we are now where we can have a food pantry, a clothes pantry, and serve back as well. We do it all.
Nestor Aparicio 07:37
Fill everybody in on how they can help. By the way, I’m gonna call her Suzanne, because I went to school. Her sister in law, Stacy Nagel, is here. Her husband, David, is home sick. He came last year. You were sick last year. The whole time. He’s like, this isn’t my thing, man, this is my wife’s thing. I can’t believe she’s not here. So she’s here to take a bow. Irene man is here as well. Where Costas it’s all brought to my friends at the Maryland lottery and wise markets. And my friends, wise markets. You know, when Mars became wise here in Dundalk and the heritage fair, the folks at wise just been great. We call them wise conversations, because this is where it leads. So how can people help? Clothing is something men’s and women’s items, toiletries, those sorts of things. While you’re about
Irene Mann 08:21
children’s clothing, toddlers, babies. We have diapers. We have baby diapers, we have adult diapers. We have toys, shoes.
Nestor Aparicio 08:30
It’s a resource center, really much.
Speaker 1 08:33
We have bed linens. We have towels, walkers, sometimes Socks, socks, so
Nestor Aparicio 08:39
Soup for the Soul. Where did that? Would like it? Is that a something that there’s one of those in Gainesville, Florida, or something like so it just seems like a, you know, a name, and when I look you up, it’s Soup for the Soul. Dundalk, correct, Soup for the Soul. Dundalk.org, if you want to participate. And I’m going to be given lots of stories here this week about ways I don’t hear anybody say, Oh, can’t do anything. I don’t know how to help. Well, here we are. So here we are, easy enough to help, yeah, absolutely. All right. So what can people do? Drop it off.
Speaker 1 09:09
They call you off. They can call me. My number is been out there for 14 years, my personal number. I answered it all hours. I write on the
Nestor Aparicio 09:17
wall here at cost. It’s like I used to do that skate, awesome. Yeah. So give the phone number. Tell me how to get fine. It’s 443-742-9160,
09:25
you can find it on Facebook. You can find it on my personal face.
Nestor Aparicio 09:28
How I found you. I was looking for you. I’m like, I’m looking for David. I don’t have a number on him. And I almost hit Suzanne saying, what? And you guys are on the internet for last year. So everything I do is on YouTube. I just looked up my old couple Super Bowl. Fine, everybody. I’m like, Alright, Super Soul. I wonder. I said I think he was on Facebook, and the next thing I know, there is Super Soul right on Facebook, and Soup for the Soul eighteen@yahoo.com Also, and David, I hope you get through the ick. You get done with that. What you know? Don’t, don’t we don’t touch down up in here. No. So what day of the week? Do we do this? How can we activate Today’s
Speaker 1 10:02
our day. We do it on Mondays. We serve from three to 530 we’ve been okay, get you out of here. We’ve been there since nine o’clock this morning. Prepping today. They’re having homemade I was gonna ask, what’s the main homemade chili Mac today, seasoned apples. They can have a corned beef sandwich or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They can have chips. They’re gonna take home chips, they’re gonna take home bread, they’re gonna take home canned goods. They’re gonna take home clothes, shoes, whatever they need. So 200
Nestor Aparicio 10:28
people overall served will be served maybe 750, to 75 families kind of give or take with some numbers, with people at home and people that are that your utility. What happens is there an exit program to try to get these folks some some help, you know, other kinds of help, so they’re not living under viaducts, as we said, right?
Speaker 1 10:52
Well, we have resources available, not personally through us, but through other resource places where people
Nestor Aparicio 10:59
come to you and say, I’m homeless. You say, Okay, let’s try to get you know, be above and beyond the meal, right? Yes, let’s get you in touch with someone that can move you so that they’re not three years from now still coming and and getting food from you, right? Unfortunately,
Stacy Nagel 11:16
they are. If they’re truly homeless for a number of reasons, maybe addiction, maybe mental health. You are their Monday place. We are their Monday place. The truly homeless, the ones who like being out on the street, prefer to be on the street. They usually don’t take the help. So we’re just happy to be able to be there and help them on Mondays through what they need through the week. Give everybody
Nestor Aparicio 11:37
a story. You don’t you don’t need to make me cry or laugh or whatever. Give me a story about someone that you feel like, not just you just fed them for the day, right, but that you’ve become, you know their name, you know where they are. They don’t need to be homeless or just somebody you’re helping. And put a story behind that for me. Hopefully it’s never me or hopefully it’s never me, or hopefully it’s never anybody in
Stacy Nagel 12:02
the audience. I won’t, won’t put a name out there, but since we’ve taken over, we’ve known him. He is on the streets. He’s local here in Dundalk, mental health issues, yes, we’ve offered for him to go to a men’s shelter quite a few times every winter. Actually turns it down every year, grateful for the canned goods that have the flip taps on them, and ramen noodles and, you know, the individual cereals, whatever we can get for him, the little fees there, little fruit cups. He’s there every Monday, in line unless he’s sick, which during Christmas, I think he is
Nestor Aparicio 12:35
a human being on the struggle. This is somebody we went to high school with, somebody we knew, you know, say, in that case,
Speaker 1 12:41
from the area, absolutely, from the area. And we look forward when we don’t see him, we get worried about
Nestor Aparicio 12:49
absolutely, especially when it’s cold this time of year, absolutely. And I don’t know if
Stacy Nagel 12:53
Irene knows this or not, I can tell her the name of the person when we leave out of here. But I was away last week. While I was away, I received a text that when I got to a port where I was able to get on my phone to find out she’s
Nestor Aparicio 13:04
cruising last week, balconies, people, you got a little break you deserve that.
Stacy Nagel 13:09
We found out one of our clients actually perished at a convenience store. He froze to death, actually, and one of our volunteers walked up to him to try and give him a hot chocolate, and when she touched him, I’m touching your shirt. Yeah, when she touched him, she knew, and she had to call 911, so I haven’t shared that with Irene yet, because I knew she was gonna say, where is he? Because it’s one of her favorites. But, well, this is a it’s not the one that I
13:37
do. I No, no, no, no, good. Okay.
Nestor Aparicio 13:40
Well, I mean, you know, you’re in this fight every day at the street level for what is a primary source of donation for you? I mean, I mentioned my friends at wise market to give food away. Businesses like Costas, people do unbelievable things without ever talking about it, right? And food is one of those things, and we’re gonna talk about it later today that you know, from seed to trash, right? From seed to compost. How can we make this better? How can we make this more sustainable? For folks you know, and say, food is a right, but it feels like in our society of abundance, of abundance, in our life we have here we should be feeding people.
Stacy Nagel 14:15
There’s a lot of food waste that goes on, not only here in this community, but in the entire United States. You see people say, Oh, my lettuce is wilted. I’m gonna throw it out. Don’t throw it out. Bag it out and send it to us. We’ll figure out something to do with it. Cabbage, lettuce, onions, fresh vegetables. People take for granted if they’re wilted, dented, ugly, we can use them. We will make soup out of them. We will do whatever we have to do.
Nestor Aparicio 14:39
All right, well, Soup for the Soul. Dundalk, very easy to find Irene, very easy to find Stacy. You can’t find Suzanne because she’s down in Florida, but it’s, you know, when your hub came out last week and I saw the last name, I think I even said this on the air. I’m like, I kind of thought, you know that name and Nagel and Dundalk and I grew up the community. Part of this. And I, you know, I would think you at times you see people that you know, and you’re like, I can’t, you know, like people on the struggle. And that becomes even more in a small community like this, where I would say, nobody comes and nobody leaves, Don dog, I haven’t left yet. And I, you know, there have been some offers. And here I still hear you, you you, you see your neighbors. Is what you see.
Speaker 2 15:23
I see people I went to high school with. I see people that we go to church with,
Nestor Aparicio 15:27
and also the generosity of the people in our community. Oh my gosh. The generosity
Stacy Nagel 15:31
is overwhelming. Um, we need very little to sustain, and somehow our community sustains you, makes it happen. Yeah, absolutely.
Nestor Aparicio 15:41
All right. Well, I don’t know what else to say, except we’re off to a soupy start. You guys were eating soup here because they know where the good Maryland crab soup is. We’re in Dundalk. We’re Costas. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. Cup of soup or bowl you stopped by any of our places this week? Fade these on Tuesday, Cocos on Wednesday, Thursday, at State Fair, Friday at Cooper. Cooper’s north and Timonium. I’m gonna give you a Marilyn lottery sketch. I already had a $5 winner. Guy came up set a $5 winner. So I took a picture. It is the magic eight ball promotion. It’s kind of I like these. I wanted the monopoly tickets, and they got a machine, right? Cash, pop banner. But I like rubbing little magic eight ball because it makes me feel good. So my thanks Irene. My thanks to Stacy. My thanks to David for coming by last year. Suzanne, get a tan. Will you down in Florida? It’s 20 degrees up here. We got poor folks freezing, freezing to death, literally in the middle of a segment. We should all live in Florida because it’s warm and all that. But I don’t know about all that. I’m here in beautiful Sparrows Point in Dundalk. We’re gonna continue action down here. I think Jimmy Thomas gonna stop by. Phone number again. Email, give me at all. 443-742-9160,
16:46
email is Soup for the Soul eighteen@yahoo.com
Speaker 3 16:50
or you can see us on the web at Soup for the Soul dundalk.org,
Nestor Aparicio 16:55
and irene’s running the operation. So I want to thank you for COVID too. So get most peanut butter and jelly sandwiches today.
Speaker 1 17:01
Before we go, I have to thank all of our volunteers, because they effort, their effort today. Oh my gosh, all that they’re there now we see we have Dana, we have Miss Eleanor. We have Miss D we have Miss Carol. We have Scott. We have Rob. We have Jason. We have Mr. Joe. We have Lisa in close, her daughter Lily, and her daughter Danny. We have my husband, of course. We have Mark. I cannot think of his name, but he runs another kind of thing, like we do in Baltimore. So then we should bring him out. We should. I’ll email you later the week. Let’s go. Okay. We have all kinds of volunteers today. I have a Boy Scout troop coming out, bringing six kids. We had a nick Finnerty make us an outdoor shed as an eagle. These kids are
Nestor Aparicio 17:46
good there to help serve Absolutely. You know, I was a scout, yeah, service, right?
Speaker 1 17:51
Yes, yes, yes. Have compassion. But super this whole runs fully on volunteers. And without the volunteers, we could not make it work. So when I say takes a village, I’m gonna
Nestor Aparicio 18:03
guilt some of us. OB getting over here and helping them, the kids of the Boy Scout, Cub Scout pack, 409, can get over there. You can go help super, the soul dundalk.org The way to do it. My thanks to irema, thanks to what I’m not gonna call you, Suzanne Stacy. It’s fine. You know, it’s all good. Somebody sing the Dundalk high alma mater or no, my gosh, I don’t even know if I remember somebody the other day. I sang it when we were in the High School Championship game. I’ve done it twice. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m a Dundalk high Hall of Famer. Okay, that’s true. Only Hall of Fame I’m ever getting in. And I thought like I knew how to sing it to begin with, but I’m shocked that they could put anybody into the Hall of Fame who can’t sing the fight song. So Jimmy Thomas, that guy over there with a hat, he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame at Dundalk more than me, because he threw touchdown passes and all I did was MCD a powder puff softball game or a football game. By the way, class 86 beat the class 85 I don’t want to admit that 40 years later, but it’s true, he’s starting to work. So if you get into the Dundalk high Hall of Fame, you got to be able to sing the alma mater. So day before yesterday, maybe because I was saying I’m Dundalk, Dundalk, and look at ever somebody shared it, and I’m wearing my Dundalk high letterman jacket, and I know how to sing it, and they shared it, and they’re like, we can’t believe anybody else knows this song. And I said, in my era, was Mr. Miller there, when you were there, 1988 I left in 85 he was here in 86 or 87 he dragged everybody down by the auditorium, and everybody had to learn the alma mater. You don’t know the alma mater. Did you go to your private member
Stacy Nagel 19:44
and a private school girl? What did you where’d you go? Institute of Notre Dame? I n,
Nestor Aparicio 19:48
d, all right, now make sure what Mount Carmel, no. Catholic High No, Notre Dame. Prep, they all rose in the valley.
Speaker 1 19:57
Mr. Was it Dorsch? That was. Now shout, have
Nestor Aparicio 20:01
a better day. It’s amazing. We just lost Mr. Dash couple years ago. One of my real regrets is, um, he, I wanted him to do the show at the end of his life, and we were trying to put it together, and couldn’t make it happen because I wanted to. There’s not a Dundalk high Person of the 80s that would not remember the more I was on the morning announcement team. So I got this gig, you know, but now so I know how to sing the alma mater, and I am shocked. I’m gonna when Jimmy comes over, I’m either gonna make him sing it or I’m gonna sing it to him, and I’m not gonna let him into the Dundalk high Hall of Fame because I’m a nominee nominator, because I’m one of those nominator I’ve already nominated. He deserves to be. They should take me out, put him in, but, but I don’t know if he can sing that the alma mater, so maybe that what we won’t let him in. Can’t sing the album. Have you been to Dundalk high since they remodeled it?
Speaker 1 20:49
I have, because my son was the first graduating class out of it. Can you tell
Nestor Aparicio 20:53
everyone what it’s like to be behind the walls of a glorious facility that has been completely remade. It’s beautiful. It doesn’t feel like a high school,
Speaker 1 21:03
no, actually, it feels like fish bowl. It’s glass, it’s modern, it’s beautiful. It
Nestor Aparicio 21:09
feels like a museum, like the walls have pictures, and absolutely, absolutely, if Kevin cabinets were here, I would give him all the glory I tried to give Johnny, oh, all the blame. And now he’s run off. So I’ll get Kathy Claus my earlier. But you know, you talk about investing in communities. Talk about this trade point, Atlantic, and what my father working down at the point. We talk about jobs so we don’t need soup kitchens. We’re always going to need soup kitchens. We’re always going to need them, right? Or
Speaker 1 21:35
will always be with us. And I’m afraid, with the price of food going up, our
Nestor Aparicio 21:39
eggs, right? But, I mean, but I but we have invested in a high school. And I was over at the elementary school for Heritage fair. Whole new thing going on. I mean, so there’s been a great investment in Dundalk. You would agree, in our lifetime, we’ve seen it that if our children go to these schools, we’re like little better than not having the air conditioner to heat work and back in the old bird in the 80s, right? And Delve, elementary school
22:01
is beautiful too. My grandson goes there, and
Nestor Aparicio 22:03
they won’t let me in yet. I want to Colgate. So we have rebuilt Colgate. So I am very proud. Fix Holly bird for Mr. Stadium. Do that. Oh yeah, please. All right, soup for the seat. Get me on my Dundalk tangent. You’ll get me all I don’t do this when I’m in Towson or I’m in, you know, other side of the Catonsville. I yell about other things over there, but I’ll yell about that on Thursday. We’re Costas. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery wise conversations. My thanks to people here each day this week given time to come over and be a part of what I’m doing, and taking time away from soup day at Soup for the Soul of Dundalk. So go them some peanut butter and jelly sandwich. What’s on the menu again tonight? Mid chili
Speaker 1 22:37
Mac. So many chili Max season apples. They can have corned beef sandwich, peanut butter and jelly. They eat, wow. All right, feed them all not the average soup kitchen will
Nestor Aparicio 22:47
snow later in a week. Send them home something good. All right, I’m back for more work cost. It’s back for more work done. Dog. It is Baltimore positive. Stay with us. We.
