By Vanessa Hulse
Staff Writer
The Warming House is a well-known facility in Olean, NY that provides food for any member in the community that would like to join. The Warming House provides a meal every day at dinner time throughout the entire year; this means it serves 300 days out of every year. On an average day there is usually anywhere from 15-40 guests. It is run entirely by the students at St. Bonaventure University through the Franciscan Center for Social Concern on the campus.
Through the generosity of the surrounding community and various organizations in the community, the Warming House is able to serve on average 608 meals every month, or approximately 7500 meals every year according to data provided by the Warming House. There are several partnerships with area organizations that aid in providing food.
Jeff Sved, Director of the Franciscan Center for Social Concern, as well as the various members of the Warming House community are especially grateful for the support the Warming House receives from St. Joseph’s High School in Buffalo is the largest provider of non-perishable food items Every year they host a food drive from Thanksgiving to Christmas and bring two large trucks full of food. Sved mentioned that this partnership in particular helps to keep the Warming House open.
Another important source of food for the Warming House year-round is through Food Bank of Western New York, where over 500 pounds of food are received every month. This is the main supplier of protein for the Warming House.
A third important partnership that the Warming House has is during the summer months, the Farm to Table Summer Community allows for the Warming House to get fresh fruits and vegetables. This is through a partnership with Canticle Farm, a non-profit community supported agriculture farm sponsored by the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany. Through this opportunity, around 4-6 students work at the farm during the morning and then help to serve the meal the afternoons at the Warming House.
There are also several smaller partnerships that the Warming House also relies on to remain open and serve meals 6 days a week. Many of these are local food drives as well as local parishes Upon interviewing those that help at the Warming House, it was noted that the Warming House has never run out of food, due to all of these important partnerships. However, since the Warming House is solely run on donations, they are always looking for additional donations.
Warming House volunteers said that there is a noticeable increase of patrons toward the end of the month versus at the beginning of the month. It was also mentioned that this could be due to the fact that many of the patrons are also a part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (previously known as Food Stamps) in America and therefore at the end of the month, it can be harder for them to find their own source of food. In addition, more people tend to come at the end of the month because their food allotment for the month has begun to run out.
The Warming House is a great way for members of the community to receive a warm meal six days a week and a wonderful way for students or other community volunteers to experience the lives of people who live in poverty in Olean, NY.
If you would like to learn more about how to get involved with the Warming House, contact Jeff Sved at jsved@sbu.edu. The Warming House is currently looking for support in many forms including in the form of prayer, volunteering, food donations, and financial contributions.
To learn more about Canticle Farm, visit http://www.canticlefarm.org/.
