After seven years at the First Presbyterian Church, the Stone Soup Social and Sharing Center in Marengo has new digs.

The weekly soup social and its food pantry held its second lunch Tuesday at the United Methodist Church, 119 E. Washington St. The group moved to the church’s basement about two weeks ago.

John Arient was among the founders of the Stone Soup Social and Sharing Center in Marengo in 2015.

What they do at the meals each week, Arient said, is not a soup kitchen for the poor, but instead give residents somewhere to go and share a meal with friends.

“Most of these people can go to any restaurant in town,” Arient said. Many make free-will donations each week, he added, noting the money goes to buying food for the next meal, to food for the pantry, and to the costs of operating both.

What they get out of going, volunteers said, is a community.

“Here, you can have the mayor sitting next to the homeless. We do get needy people here and encourage older folks to come,” he said.

MaryLou Valasquez, 77, said she and her husband have been coming to the lunch meal “since they opened up here.” They sit at the same table and talk.

She also brings an insulated bag with her salsa to add some heat to her soup. “We enjoy seeing all of the people we know,’ Valasquez said. One friend drives from Belvidere to join them.

Stone Soup board member Chris Murphy called the dining group “a community within a community.”

Their guests will pick up food for neighbors who don’t drive, and residents and business owners will pick up food for others or donate to them, too, Murphy said.

“So many connections are made. It is is about more than just the food,” she said.

In addition to giving the charitable group a new location, it provides the membership of United Methodist a chance to serve their community, said the church’s pastor, the Rev. Howard “Doc” Newcomb.

He’s already seen parishioners stop in to help clean or serve soup, he said.

The space Stone Soup is using in the church basement has been under used for the past few years, Newcomb said. Now, it is full of food for the pantry, which gives out food boxes to anyone who needs them each Monday.

The adjacent kitchen and dining room they serve the meal from “hasn’t been used much. Since (COVID-19), the building was used less and less,” he said.

Before the pandemic, the area was used for the church’s day care program, but the pandemic closed the program and now they are having problems finding staff for it, he said.

The pandemic also changed many things for Stone Soup, Arient said.

“Masks and soup didn’t work out too well,” he said. So from March 2020 to March 2022 and with mask orders in place, there were no Tuesday community meals.

Stone Soup also saw need increase for its food program.

Before the pandemic, it had about 40 families who would come pick out food each Monday, he said. Now, those numbers are closer to 150 or more families needing help, Arient said.

Neither could they continue to allow families to shop and pick out their own food, he said. Instead, they put together food boxes and delivered them to cars waiting outside.

More information on Stone Soup Social and Sharing Center can be found on its Facebook page, facebook.com/Stonesoupmarengo.