Jeni's Table with SKIP’s Gina Larkin

As we enter what is the toughest season on Cape Cod for many, I thought I’d highlight one of the outer Cape’s most cherished and critical resources, the Soup Kitchen In Provincetown, known to everyone in the area as SKIP. Established in 1992, SKIP provides a hot, nourishing lunch – including soup, salad, full hot meal and dessert – to outer Cape residents from the first Monday in November through the last Friday in April. Lunch is served from 12:30 to 1:30 pm on weekdays at the Provincetown United Methodist Church.

SKIP serves between 150-200 meals a day, over 23,000 meals each season, to residents who are either in need or seek community during the long, wintertime months. The lack of proper nutrition is a serious problem, affecting everyone from seniors on fixed incomes, to the workers facing seasonal unemployment caused by the tourist economy, to families simply struggling to balance childcare and the cost of living on Cape Cod, and no area is hit harder than the outer Cape.

SKIP has expanded its services to include “to-go” meals for take home each day the guests attend a meal, in addition to sending meals home for the weekends, homeless-prevention assistance, nutrition counseling and health monitoring. A representative from the Homeless Prevention Council offers housing assistance to anyone in need from 10 am until 2 pm several days a week.

The extraordinary woman who helms this kitchen is Gina Larkin. Gina started her work in her thirties in a commercial kitchen at the Boston Living Center, an organization serving those living with HIV/AIDS, in the 1990s. She then became the Director of Food Service at the Women’s Lunch Place, for women and children dealing with homelessness. Her work with these two organizations forever changed her perspective on what is important. After dealing with some personal challenges, she felt a pull to move to the place that her family visited every summer, Cape Cod. As a gay woman, she felt an immense connection to Provincetown where she has worked in restaurants and catering for almost three decades. Experiencing the difficulties of surviving the Cape Cod economy personally, she was constantly reminded that this was her community, her people, and that led her to take the helm of SKIP three years ago.

As I got my start on Cape Cod running a soup kitchen in the mid Cape, we discussed how the warm, sociable atmosphere of the dining room can also be as nourishing as the meal itself. “We do more than just give people good food, but ‘food’ can provide comfort and a knowledge that someone cares. It can be the basis for community. That’s what we do here,” Gina explains.

When I asked Gina why she chose to highlight her Black Bean Burger recipe, she said, “I like to constantly challenge myself to create healthier options for our guests that are full of flavor. This is one that even my heartiest meat eaters enjoy.”

Gina strives to create recipes that show people how they can use food accessed through the pantries to create nutritious, delicious meals – something else we have in common. This was swirling through my head as I worked to create a “what’s left” recipe, knowing winter is “comfort food” season, so instead of one recipe, I’m going to give you two: Savory Stuffed Acorn Squash and Butternut Squash Burritos.

Jeni Wheeler is the director, co-founder and creative mind behind the Family Table Collaborative. Through her sheer will, collaboration with local partners, thousands of manpower hours, and a dedicated army of over 600 volunteers, they have served over 127,500 meals to the Cape Cod community and rescued over 25,000 pounds of fresh produce to put back into the community. Jeni is passionate and dedicated to creating sustainable change through making nutritious, delicious food more accessible and addressing the education necessary to make cooking easier and more fun. Jeni has her MBA, with a focus in Social Entrepreneurship, from Babson.

SKIP
Provincetown United Methodist Church
20 Shank Painter Road, Provincetown
skipfood.org
508-487-8331

Family Table Collaborative
1338 Main Street (Route 28), South Yarmouth
familytablecollaborative.org