A living faith leads to food bank and soup kitchen

Isabel Kronicz's dream of starting a soup kitchen was born on a bitterly cold January day years ago.

ERIC SUCAR staff Isabel and Frank Kronicz check on a turkey breast for the Church of the Visitation's monthly soup kitchen. The couple started the church's food bank more than 10 years ago and recently launched the soup kitchen. She was sitting in her car, waiting for her husband, Frank, to finish shopping at a store near their Rahway home. Then she saw the man she still cannot forget. A black man, huddled up against a concrete wall in the sun, trying to stay warm in the frigid air.

"I'm going to cry," she said, still overwhelmed by the memory. "We gave him everything we had that day."

Years passed. Frank retired from his job as a manager with Consolidated Edison, Isabel from her job as a nurse at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. They moved to Brick in 1993 and quickly found a spiritual home and friends at the Roman Catholic Church of the Visitation on Mantoloking Road.

The couple started the food bank at the church 101/2 years ago. But Isabel never forgot that man from so long ago. And this May, the parish's first soup kitchen meal was served in the church auditorium. Seven people showed up. By October, the number had grown to 33.

"It's still just building up," she said. "It takes time for people to know we are here."

Last week, the Kroniczes and their small army of dedicated volunteers served up full-course Thanksgiving dinner for their guests. The smell of four 10-pound turkey breasts roasting in the kitchen oven wafted over the room. Aluminum pans on the counter were piled high with corn, string beans, stuffing and gravy, all kept warm by tiny Sterno cans underneath.

Frank, 75, punched boiled potatoes with a masher, basted turkeys and kept up a running conversation with the volunteers.

"He's the best masher going," Isabel said.

Toward the back, a woman tossed the salad the quickest way, with her gloved hands. Marie Cavallaro, another volunteer spooned the salad into foam bowls, then headed out to the main room, where she began serving guests.

"I set up," she said. "I get everything going. I just want to help people. There is so much need."

Head cook Nanette D'Amico paused briefly during her kitchen duties.

"It makes me feel good," she said. "You have to give back. It's part of our faith."

When Isabel asked for volunteers to help with the soup kitchen earlier this year, 70 people answered the call.

"Our parish is just spectacular," she said. "It was just overwhelming. We've been blessed with a lot of wonderful people from our parish. It's been good for all of us, the friendships we have built through it."

"We've been very blessed with wonderful people. Someone handed me this this morning to buy turkeys," she said, and pulled a $100 bill out of her pocket.

The church's food bank is in a small room next to the kitchen. It is crammed with canned goods, spaghetti sauce, peanut butter and all kinds of nonperishable items. Keeping the room filled is a "full-time job," Isabel said.

"The only thing we don't give out are the perishables," she said.

Parishioners and friends provide the coupons. Then Frank and Isabel sit down, read all the store fliers, and figure out where they can get the best deals. "Frank is worse than woman when it comes to shopping," said parishioner Nick Stranieri, who is also the church custodian. "He's got stacks of coupons. He knows where to go, when to buy it and when not to buy it."

"We sit for four or five hours with coupons," Isabel said.

The food bank helps feed 30 area families each month. The church sets aside one collection each month at each of the Masses for the food bank, she said.

The Kroniczes also find time to serve as Eucharistic ministers at the church. They are members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Frank also belongs to the Knights of Columbus. The couple will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next year. They have no children.

"God didn't give me children, so I have to do something," Isabel said. "I wanted nine boys, a baseball team. But it didn't work out."

Stranieri took a visitor aside while the meal was being prepared to praise the Kroniczes and their work with the church.

"They do more than you could ever write about," he said.

The soup kitchen opens at noon on the third Wednesday of each month, shortly after the banner goes up on the front lawn. The menu for December will feature spiral ham and sweet potatoes. No reservations are required. Everybody who attends a soup-kitchen meal also goes home with a goody bag of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples and cookies.

The meal is open to anyone, regardless of financial status, Isabel said.

"We want people to know it's for the lonely, not just the poor," she said.

For more information or to volunteer, call Frank and Isabel Kronicz at 732-255-2835.