Michelle Williams, right, the organizer of Mexico’s Good Samaritan Soup Kitchen, holds a banner Tuesday with volunteer Robin McKenna at Calvin Lyons Hall on 134 Main St. in Mexico. Residents of the area can get a warm meal at the hall on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Beginning Sept. 1, the hours will be Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times

MEXICO — When Mexico’s Good Samaritan Soup Kitchen began, organizer Michelle Williams had just $1,000 from donations to work with. Now the emergency food pantry and soup kitchen is a nonprofit 501C organization under the town of Mexico, which allows it to accept grants and donations.  

Williams started the pantry in November 2023, when she saw a need in the community for the homeless and the elderly, “and really anybody of low-income status that needed to have a friendly place to go,” she told the Rumford Falls Times Tuesday at the soup kitchen in Calvin Lyons Hall.

In the food pantry’s start, Williams used her own money for the food baskets along with few donations.

“I reached out to the public; people could do what they could do. It’s not a real wealthy area by no means. I’m very frugal, so I’d spend money wisely and then people were noticing what I was doing and they were seeing a difference,” Williams said.

Since becoming a nonprofit earlier this year, she was contacted by Peter Weinhold, a Peru native, who wrote a grant for her for $4,000 from his foundation, the Peter and Kristin Weinhold Charitable Foundation.

They’ve also received grants from the Friends of the River Valley and large donations from the River Valley Rotary Club and the Oxford Federal Credit Union, Williams said.

Walmart has also been a “great support” for the pantry, knowing that the pantry is not a Good Shepherd Food Bank entity and can’t receive that businesses’ markdowns for meats, baked goods and other items.

The reason that Mexico’s Good Samaritan isn’t associated with Good Shepherd is because nothing inside the pantry hall locks up, Williams said, and there are requirements that other food pantries associated with Good Shepherd are not within a certain mile radius of one another.

On Tuesday, Williams and volunteer Robin McKenna, who has worked side by side with Williams since the pantry and soup kitchens’ inception, were expecting to see around 60 people. Tuesdays are usually slower days since some people aren’t yet used to the soup kitchen being open on that day and it’s raining, Williams said.

Williams does all the cooking except for some desserts, which McKenna makes, and Tuesday’s menu included a warm homemade vegetable beef soup, chicken and tuna salad sandwiches, potato salad, pasta salad, fresh vegetables with hummus and for dessert, cookies and frosted brownies.

The two women met when Williams decided to prepare Thanksgiving Day baskets for those in need last November when McKenna arrived at Williams’ home with five frozen turkeys and her offer to help.

“We had 65 or 70 families, and I got enough donations to cover that many families that could get a Thanksgiving basket,” Williams said. After that, the two starting collecting donations and food for Christmas baskets.

Meghan Beale of Mexico gets a meal Tuesday with her daughter, Addie Miller, at Mexico’s Good Samaritan Soup Kitchen at Calvin Lyons Hall on 134 Main St. Residents of the area can get a warm meal at the hall on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Beginning Sept. 1, the hours will be Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times

Then a devastating flood hit the area in December 2023, causing hundreds of area people to lose electricity and to be evacuated from their homes due to flooding.

During the flood, Williams saved all the food in the pantry and everything in the hall, and she and McKenna serviced 100 Christmas meals, and the emergency pantry delivered food bags to another 110 families, she said.

When asked why Williams spends about 60 hours a week of her own unpaid time on the food pantry, she said, “You’ll think it’s crazy but I’m the type of person that has always been a giver and not a taker,” and that although she doesn’t want to sound like “a Bible thumper” the Holy Ghost “pushes her,” she said.

“You know I sat in bed one night and it’s like (I thought) what can I do to keep myself busy because I was so used to working and giving and doing,” she thought following her retirement from nursing in 2022.

“Robin and I are both retired nurses so when they come in (to the soup kitchen) they see us treat everybody like family. We don’t care what your living circumstances are; we don’t care if you’re rich, you’re poor, you’re dirty, or you’re clean. We treat everybody the same,” Williams said.

McKenna spends about 55 volunteer hours working for the pantry. She does the work because she likes to help people. “I’m a people person and (used to) being in the medical field and being around the elderly and people who need help or whatever. It’s just something to do,” McKenna said.

Mexico’s Good Samaritan Soup Kitchen is in the Calvin Lyons Hall at 134 Main St. in Mexico. Soup kitchen meals are served Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Beginning Sept. 1, the hours will be Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

To volunteer or make donations contact Williams at 207-418-1265 or see the organization’s Facebook page Mexico Good Samaritan.