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Fostoria couple serves the Lord side by side |
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Written by LAURIE STEVENS, Chronicle Writer
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Friday, 04 January 2008 |
FOSTORIA—Faith and service have always gone hand-in-hand for Deacon Joseph Hulderman and his wife, Phyllis.
The couple from Fostoria St. Wendelin has devoted their retirement to the operation of The Sharing Kitchen, an ecumenical soup kitchen Mrs. Hulderman founded 25 years ago, but they have made helping others a priority throughout their 53 years of marriage.
Even while they were busy raising their four children, they welcomed 10 foster babies into their home. “It was a family thing,” says Mrs. Hulderman. “The kids all helped take care of them.”
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| Deacon Joseph Hulderman and his wife Phyllis, pictured in their Fostoria home, have made service to others a priority throughout their 53-year marriage. (Chronicle photo by Laurie Stevens) |
Deacon Hulderman recalls how his wife used to bake sweets for their children to take to the elderly neighbors. “She always tried to teach our kids to be charitable people,” he says.
“You pass this on,” she adds. “Because now, our kids are all doing what we did. They take people into their homes, they help them — it’s amazing.”
Mrs. Hulderman is the director of The Sharing Kitchen in Fostoria, but she refers to her husband, the treasurer for the board, as “my right-hand guy.”
Every day, Deacon Hulderman makes the rounds to area restaurants and grocers to pick up donated food for the kitchen, which serves breakfast and lunch three days a week. The couple cooks, cleans and serves on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays alongside other volunteers from 20 area churches and from a group of retired Seneca County teachers.
“Just to keep the place running is a full-time job,” says Mrs. Hulderman.
She relates she first began thinking about the need for a soup kitchen in Fostoria after she saw a television news story that depicted people lined up at a kitchen in another city 25 years ago.
She called unemployment agencies and welfare departments in the surrounding Seneca, Wood and Hancock counties and learned the regional unemployment rate was 11 percent at the time.
“I asked them if they thought there was a need for getting a soup kitchen started, and they said definitely,” she says.
At the time, she was employed as an office manager, so she started mentioning the idea to different churches and organizations in town, hoping they would do something about it. Weeks passed, and she still found herself worrying about the people who might be going to bed hungry each night in Fostoria.
“Nobody picked up on it, nobody did anything about it, so after a sleepless night I thought, ‘darn it, if nobody’s going to do anything about it, I’ll do it myself,’ ” she recalls.
She pitched the idea to the local ministerial association, and nearly every church in Fostoria signed on to provide volunteers. Since then, the Huldermans have watched The Sharing Kitchen grow from a fledgling operation to an established charity supported by the entire community.
The kitchen operated out of Hope Lutheran Church in Fostoria for eight years before moving to its current location at 321 N. Main St. in 1991.
The building, formerly a rundown theater, was bought with a $40,000 grant Mrs. Hulderman asked for and received from the city. The cost of the building and a new roof left $1,000 for the extensive remaining renovations.
Deacon Hulderman, then still employed full time at a railroad company, spent about nine months working with other skilled volunteers to transform the building on the limited budget.
“It was amazing, because I told the Lord if He wanted this to work, that He was going to have to fix it so that it would work. And He did,” Mrs. Hulderman says, tearing up. “To look back and see how things just fell into place, it’s just the Lord’s hand.”
Today, The Sharing Kitchen is operated by an all-volunteer force and almost entirely supported financially by individuals, churches and organizations. Donated clothing and a lending library have been added to its services.
Mrs. Hulderman chuckles recalling the first day, when they served three meals. Word spread and 35 people were coming by the end of the first month. Now the kitchen usually serves between 100 and 150 meals each day.
Fostoria has a low homeless population, but many individuals who are struggling to get by on small or fixed incomes frequent The Sharing Kitchen. Deacon Hulderman notes all are welcome, without question.
“It’s not just for those that need food. Your need might be companionship. Your need might be love,” he explains. “That’s why she named it the Sharing Kitchen, instead of a soup kitchen.”
He marvels at the constant flow of volunteers who have staffed the kitchen over the years. “Somebody leaves, another one seems to step in,” he says.
Retired since 1995, the Huldermans — who were “high school sweethearts” — say they now devote most of their time to babysitting grandchildren, helping at the kitchen and volunteering elsewhere.
“It’s all in serving the Lord,” says Mrs. Hulderman.
They take Communion to sick and shut-in parishioners on Sunday mornings, and also coordinate devotions to Our Lady of Fatima, transporting a pilgrimage statue to a new home each week and praying the rosary with families.
Praying the rosary together has been a daily ritual for the couple since their children were young. “We’ve prayed together from the very beginning, and we still pray together every day,” says Mrs. Hulderman.
“It takes three to make a good marriage,” she adds. “That’s the husband, and the wife and God. You’ve got to have God in your marriage.”
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