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Polly Pulley inside the Spirit of Faith Soup Kitchen in Jacksonville.
Photo: David Blanchette | Journal-CourierPolly Pulley inside the Spirit of Faith Soup Kitchen in Jacksonville.
Polly Pulley inside the Spirit of Faith Soup Kitchen in Jacksonville.
Polly Pulley inside the Spirit of Faith Soup Kitchen in Jacksonville.
Polly Pulley makes sure that everyone who walks in the door is served a hot, nutritious meal with an extra helping of good cheer.
“I don’t care what kind of a day they have had before they get here, I want to make sure they have a life-changing experience before they walk out of that door,” said the 62-year-old Pulley, who is the director of the Spirit of Faith Soup Kitchen in Jacksonville. “It makes me feel wonderful. We don’t see a stranger come through that door. I treat them the way I want to be treated.”
Pulley has headed the Soup Kitchen since 2012. The Chicago native followed a friend to Jacksonville in 1992 after she told Pulley that the community was a nice place to raise children. Pulley worked in a group home, a day care center and a nursing home before the former soup kitchen director approached and said, “I know a good job for you.”
Pulley gave it a try “and fell in love with it.”
“I’m a people person, I love seeing people being treated right and their needs being met,” Pulley said. “ Every time we meet somebody we get an opportunity to impact that person’s life. That’s the fulfillment.”
Pulley recruits and supervises the volunteers from all walks of life who work at the soup kitchen, including college students who “are such a blessing.” Her own job description is simple and all-encompassing: “My main job is to purchase the food, cook the food, help serve the food, then do the cleanup afterwards,” Pulley said.
During a typical non-pandemic week the kitchen is open Monday through Thursday, with people arriving about 3:30 p.m. and the meal served around 3:45 p.m. A children’s reading program starts at 2:30 followed by play time in the gymnasium before they sit down to eat with everyone else.
At the beginning of each month the soup kitchen may average 30 meals per day, Pulley said, but that number can climb to 60 or more by the end of the month when Illinois’ Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits run out. Spirit of Faith also delivers up to 800 meals a month for people who are unable to come into the soup kitchen on North Main Street.
“We feed anyone who comes in and wants a meal, there’s no criteria, all you have to do is just make it through the door,” Pulley said. “And if you can’t make it in, we’ll come to you.”
The daily meal turnout can also fluctuate depending on the menu. Pulley has noticed that some things are particularly popular with her regular diners.
“Everybody loves my goulash. Whenever I make it I have to fix two giant pans because there is never enough,” Pulley said. “And we make some dynamite garlic bread. One of our workers would go home and try to make the garlic bread but it would never taste like the soup kitchen’s. And I asked her if she used hot dog buns, and she said, ‘oh, that’s the secret!’”
Soup kitchen visitors are also fond of Pulley’s fried chicken.
“I use a batter sometimes for country fried chicken, and I also do just plain fried chicken,” Pulley said. “One young lady who lives in the Vas Housing will throw open her door when I pull up and say ‘Miss Pulley, it’s fried chicken day!’ When people smell the fried chicken cooking, we usually get a lot of people that day.”
The soup kitchen receives Prairieland United Way funding and accepts public donations of money and food. The contributions help defray the facility’s utility costs, which are substantial for the large building that houses eight classrooms, a gym, two full restrooms, dining room and kitchen.
The soup kitchen is a place to eat, visit, play, learn, seek refuge — and in some cases turn your life around.
“We’ve had people contemplating suicide who come through that door, but we hope something inspiring is said or done while they are here so they don’t do that,” Pulley said. “One young man worked for three months with us and he was in tears. He said ‘I had no idea that knowing somebody for such a short amount of time could have such a great impact on your life.’ That’s the way I feel like every experience should be.
“I had one young man who came through probation. Sometimes we look at the mistakes they make and we want to judge them, and we forget that we have all been young once,” Pulley said. “I saw his mother recently and she told me he had changed his life around and gotten married and owned a business in Springfield. When you hear things like that, just to hear how you’ve made a positive difference in somebody’s life, it is such a blessing.”
Pulley, who is also a pastor, admits that she doesn’t need to look for something to do during her free time because it’s usually spent at the soup kitchen. Her son and four grandchildren always know where they can find her.
“I think everybody should find their passion in life, because when you find your passion it’s not like working, you give it your all,” Pulley said. “I can come here to do one thing and spend four or five hours here and it seems like just minutes have passed, because it’s my passion.”
Before she took the soup kitchen job, Pulley contemplated writing a book that she wanted to title “Stop and Smell the Roses.” She’d still like to write the book, which would follow her transformation from a youth with “a busy, joyless life” to the ever-smiling and often-laughing woman she is now.
“We get so stressed and upset about little things, but if you look at them they are just little things,” Pulley said. “If we take time out to know people we get a chance to experience their uniqueness, to look for the good, the blessing and the gift in them.”
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