With COVID-19 having placed Bedford County at the top of the nation’s sick list, Shelbyville Community Soup Kitchen volunteers are preparing for a fast and furious Christmas food box drive from 4 to 5 p.m. Tuesday at the South Cannon Boulevard site. Anyone with a giving heart, say organizers, are urged to please keep the soup kitchen on their Christmas gift list.

Feeding hundreds every Tuesday throughout the year, likely Santa has the soup kitchen on his nice list. Santa plans to greet families/children on Tuesday as they drive through in their cars to pick up their food boxes.

Donations are generous, and highly appreciated, but there continues to be a lot of need out there right now, organizers say. Local business owner, Danielle Armbruster, says she was overwhelmed with the community’s recent outpouring for helping the soup kitchen during the recent “Small Business Saturday.”

“We were able to collect all of this food, along with $300 that was donated to Shelbyville Community Soup Kitchen,” says Armbruster. “We are so happy that this had such a good turnout during this crazy year. Thank you to the community as well for supporting this great organization.” 

While Armbruster’s business, The Shops at Main and McGrew, usually sponsors a Christmas toy drive, she said it just didn’t seem the right mission in 2020, when so many people have been out of work due to COVID-19.

So the staff went to work, setting up their display inside the store, which is located in the former Argie Cooper Public Library building at 100 South Main St. The shop family/staff for the last three years includes her boyfriend, Mike Lagunovic, and her brother, Alex Armbruster.

The three, along with her parents, Dave and Carolyn Armbruster, have also served as soup kitchen volunteers, according to general manager Rebecca Baker.

As a result of that truckload of nonperishables, yes . . . there will be Christmas dinner for many in need. Deeming it a “wonderful” contribution, Baker says it couldn’t have come at a better time.

She adds that every such donation is vital to the soup kitchen as volunteers have been known to serve 175 families in 45 minutes. She gives volunteerism points to Rowdy Ranch Catering for still providing food each Tuesday at the old Save-A-Lot building on South Cannon Boulevard, located below the river bridge, and to Rover Baptist Church members, who will be stepping up as Tuesday’s volunteers.

While the work can at times be hectic, Baker says she still finds each Tuesday’s distribution to be rewarding mission work. She’s collected in 2020, she says, stories she likes to share about kind people donating such things as most recently, 20 sleeping bags and numerous blankets for those sleeping outdoors.

“I’m just a small part . . . blessed. God has had His Hand on the soup kitchen from the beginning.”

Baker and other volunteers talk briefly with those driving through in need of food. As well, they’re becoming acquainted with members of the homeless community.

The Times-Gazette printed a story recently on a homeless man, “Harry,” who lives near the Duck River. Baker said he and his “camp mate” were washed out since by rain; she loves to tell what happened next.

“The owner of the property let them move up [the property],” she says.

With this faith-based non profit believing in Christmas miracles, only good things are bound to happen in 2021, Baker says, revealing the soup kitchen’s current goal is to purchase a new site.

The former Save-A-Lot grocery store was donated a couple of years ago to the soup kitchen by the previous owner from Nashville. Baker says codes, being what they are for such a food kitchen, has made renovation to the building too expensive.