More about Us and our Mission
Background and History
(A modern day fable that happens to be true.)
MAY 2009-Once there was a young man named Bill Morrison. When our story begins young Bill was working as a chef in a bastion of high cuisine in Boston, USA. On his off days he was for some reason drawn to local places, on the fringe, that featured and promoted a macrobiotic, holistic, organic approach to food and its preparation. One day the people there said to young Bill: “ What are you doing here? You are different, you are not one of us.” The people at the bastion of high cuisine said to young Bill: “What are you doing wasting your time hanging around with those kooky macrobiotic people? Stick with us and follow your true vocation, learn your craft.” Young Bill listened quietly, but he still thought that those macrobiotic people had something, and that from a culinary point of view that was where he belonged.
Time passed, things happened. Bill ended up cooking in an ashram, where they had the mindset and the resources for Bill to apply his culinary skills to cooking in a macrobiotic, holistically organized way. He was happy. More time passed, Bill worked as a private chef in Colorado; Bill and Mary Mclaud had a daughter, Gillian; the family all moved to a small town on the coast of Maine, USA. Over time, Bill opened three restaurants there, for others or himself. They were “mainstream” restaurants but he tried to incorporate macrobiotic and organic priniciples to the extent that he could. It was not always easy to get the food ingredients he desired, and he wished there were better sources. At some point he began to think that he might create a local storehouse of some kind to become one of those better sources.
Still more time passed, now it was the winter of 2009 and daughter Gillian had grown into a beautiful, talented young lady in high school, and not so young Bill found himself unemployed in the midst of a very hard time economy in the small town in Maine and in the good old USA. He thought that this might be the time to pursue what he had seen in his mind and dreamed of: creation of a local community for the sale and distribution and preparation of natural, healthy foods. Politics would be kept out of it. Organic, macrobiotic ways of looking at food and concern for the role of diet in health and wellness had moved out of the fringe and were rapidly becoming mainstream, albeit in danger of being distorted by the supermarket mentality and the packaging industry. Bill (aka the Lone Ranger) sought out his friend Larry (aka Tonto) as a sounding board, and Larry listened and said that what he heard was good. To make it happen would be a good thing, and might even be a possible thing.
Not long afterwards, Mary Mclaud said to not so young Bill that in these hard times it would be nice to do something with his skills for the community; maybe a community supper. Bill thought this was a good idea, but why not do something nice on a more regular basis, not just a one shot event. So the free Soup Kitchen was born in February 2009. Bill took a small amount of money donated each week and turned it into a large amount of whole grain based vegetarian, yummy soup. He read Paul Newman’s book, In Pursuit of the Common Good and got even further inspired. He told Larry about the book and Larry read it too and was also inspired. One day, Bill again was walking and talking with Larry and he said that the soup kitchen was good, but he would really like to begin working on the natural food community project. Larry replied: “I have been thinking about the implications of the soup thing. It seems to me you already have started working on the community.” Bill thought a moment, and said: “By god, you’re right, Kemo Sabe.”
And so, the Common Good Soup Kitchen Community was born.
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