LAS CRUCES, N.M. –– According to Feeding America, over 320,000 New Mexico residents face hunger, a third of them being children. This year, El Caldito Soup Kitchen, an establishment dedicated to lowering these numbers, celebrated its 40th anniversary.
El Caldito started at a local church in 1984, originally serving an afternoon meal once a week. Eventually relocating to the Mesilla Valley Community of Hope campus, the meals are now served seven days a week and vary every day to include foods like spaghetti, vegetables and cake.
People from all walks of life line up every day for a meal.
“Now, on the average, we’re serving around 300 people per day,” Crew Chief Jane Peacock said.
No stranger to the face of hunger, Peacock has been doing this for more than 20 years. She helps plan the menu, assign cooking duties and more.
“I also have built houses in Juárez the past 20 years,” Peacock said. “I realize that we’re not all given a big sack of groceries every week to go home to, so I really feel like it made an impact on my life, and the soup kitchen is a way to answer that call.”
Peacock one day hopes for an upgrade to the kitchen facilities, which have been around for a while, to accommodate El Caldito’s ever-growing number of volunteers and donations.
El Caldito Executive Director Steven Chavira said it is important that each person his team helps feel like they exist and somebody believes in them.
“As our mission says, we’ll keep feeding the hungry until there is no more need,” Chavira said. “My goal is for us to not exist. I’m working myself out of a job, if possible.”
Until then, Peacock and Chavira are always accepting volunteers and donations so their doors can remain open to feed anyone who is in need.
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