Posted by: admin - June 30, 2009

---

After several years of service, in the spring of 2010 Skip officially went on sabbatical.  At a crowded May 23, 2010 service at St. Marks’ Episcopal the Very Reverend Jake Owensby congratulated Skip, who received a standing ovation.  He stated:  “Her diminutive stature belies the force of nature that she is …”

By:  Candace Higginbotham

The following was written by Candace Higginbotham in honor of my mother-in-law, Skip Simonton.  On November 13, 2008 Skip received the prestigious Bridge Award given by Community Renewal.  I have reprinted Candace’s article in its entirety; the only part which I added is the title, Skip’s Soul Kitchen.1  It is especially meaningful in light of Matthew 25:31-462.

A full bio of this year’s Bridge Award recipient’s community work alone would keep you here well into the wee hours of Friday morning, so I’ll just limit myself to an abridged version of only the last decade. 

To look at her activities just since 2000 is a lesson in how much of an impact the determination and commitment of one individual can make in the life of a community. A parishioner of St. Mark’s Cathedral, tonight’s recipient spearheaded a ministry several years ago to collect baby food, diapers, formula, and other food items for young mothers in need of assistance in thePetite Pantry".  Realizing the need beyond this group, she soon expanded the ministry to assembling food bags with packaged food and nutritious snacks for homeless and hungry walk-ins to the church.  With the help of Cathedral School children, the ministry began keeping a steady supply of food bags at the front desk of the church office that continues to this day. 

This was only the beginning.  Gathering a team of parishioners, the ministry moved to the kitchen.  They began cooking for parish dinners, lunches for community renewal meetings, meals for Habitat for Humanity teams of volunteers.

By the spring of 2002, our heroine went to the Dean of St. Mark’s Cathedral and announced she was going to remodel the kitchen to allow the ministry to feed more of the hungry.  When this wisp of a woman in her early 70’s stood before the Cathedral’s towering Dean, M.L. Agnew, he said "Yes Ma’am" never doubting she would do it. 
She did. 

In addition to funds the Cathedral Treasurer identified, she begged, borrowed, made do.  She developed her own benefactors.  She turned everyone she approached into a believer.  Together, they replaced the sinks, refrigerators, stoves, freezers.  Then they really started cooking. 

Starting with a "Cooking Crew" that met the second Tuesday of each month, they began cooking meals for Friendship Houses, Grace Home, McDade House, shut-ins and the sick.  The crews grew to a third Tuesday group, a second Wednesday crew, and a Men’s crew to what is now a ministry of five teams of cooking crews and over 45 members from across the community.

Under her leadership they provide meals for the Allendale, Cedar Grove, Barksdale Annex, and Queensborough Friendship Houses.  Other meal sites include the YES dropout prevention program, Woody’s Veteran’s Home and the Highland Center.   Each Thanksgiving and Christmas, they cook turkey dinners with all the trimmings for low income families to take home.  (She’s still accepting turkeys for this year’s effort, by the way.) 

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana Gulf Coast and a call came in to help feed the hundreds of evacuees streaming to Hirsch Coliseum on a moment’s notice, she didn’t blink.  She marshaled her troops like a four star general and delivered hot meals the same day.  She personally adopted an evacuee family and found them temporary housing, combed the neighborhoods until she found a suitable house for them to rent, raised funds for utility deposits, arranged for kitchen appliances at cost and had her daughters Susie and Mary come up with donated furniture she got her son Winn to pick up in his truck and deliver.   

Under her leadership the Petite Pantry took over the St. Mark’s gift shop and began collecting soap, deodorant, shampoo, lotion and other personal hygiene items to provide evacuees.  When the evacuees returned home or resettled, she renamed it the Personal Pantry and began providing bags of toiletries to homeless shelters such as the Rescue Mission and Providence House, as well as nonprofits like McDade house and others. 

When the Community Renewal partnership began building houses in Allendale, she launched a personal campaign to prod her list of friends and benefactors to purchase lots on Clay Street.  She got vegetable plants donated from Akin’s and Lex Plant Farm for community gardens and delivered them with Winn.  As you may have gathered by now, people have a hard time saying no to this whirlwind of a woman.

As the recently retired St. Mark’s Dean noted, "She moves rocks and walls, with the attitude of a pit bull and the compassion of a saint.  With amazing organizational skills she accomplishes phenomenal things and the rest of us just take orders or get out of the way." 

With nothing less than total commitment, she refuses to give up or let anyone tell her she can’t accomplish whatever needs to be done when a need arises.  In 2007 alone, her cooking crews provided over 17,000 meals to children and low income families.  Each month 8 – 10 nonprofit groups pick up delicious home cooked meals prepared and frozen to feed the hungry across the Shreveport-Bossier community throughout the month.

Those who know her will tell you her only motive is to serve the good of the community.  She doesn’t want the limelight for what she does and is quick to credit the volunteers who work with her in these extraordinary ministries.  She just wants to get it done and she has no time for doubting Thomases.  Her next project?  The St. Mark’s kitchen needs a major remodeling this time to support this extraordinary ministry that continues to grow.  Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall when she breaks it to the new Dean who arrives in January?

Who is this remarkable woman?  I think most of you know.  This year’s Bridge Award goes to someone who’s earned it many times over:  Skip Simonton.

1 Soul Kitchen is a song by The Doors, circa 1968, which happens to be on my MP3.  In listening to it shortly after the award, I immediately thought, Wow… "Skip’s Soul Kitchen" particularly in light of the Biblical reference which, coincidentally, was the Holy Gospel read on a Sunday after the award.

2 The Holy Gospel (Matthew 25:31-46):  Jesus said, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.  Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’  Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?  And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’  Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’  Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

---

Article Posted by: admin