MARION — The weekly lunches at the Marion Council on Aging are about more than just soup, seniors said Thursday, Feb. 10.  But the hot bowls of broths and chowder are pretty good, too.

“Soups are excellent,” Linda McCarthy said, sitting at a table with three friends at the center.

Her friends agreed.

“They have wonderful variety,” Joy Berto said, from clam chowder to broccoli and cheese to borscht.

Thursday’s French onion soup is her favorite kind, she said. Steaming bowls of broth topped with a thick slice of bread were paired with a chocolate trifle dessert for diners.

This Thursday was Berto’s first lunch out in more than a week, she said, after the blizzard in late January snowed her in her Marion home for 10 days.

Going out and enjoying a hot meal with friends is part of the joy of Thursday soup lunches.

“It’s a social time,” friend Janice Basset said, as the women waited for their meals.

McCarthy said some of the ladies became friends through meeting at these lunches, though others have known each other for a while.

The women said the weekly gathering brings people together to enjoy food and each other, especially in an uncertain time during the pandemic.

“Everybody makes it a point to be here,” Berto said.

That’s what it’s all about too for the organizers, council director Karen Gregory and assistant Michael Poznysz.

Gregory said the council has between 20-30 seniors dine on soup lunches every week, while another dozen or so have their lunches picked up and taken home from the center. The center hosts weekly soups from October to March, and this is the fourth year of the program, she said.

“People love soup,” Gregory said with a laugh. 

She stood in the center’s kitchen, apron on, after helping cook up dozens of bowls of broth for hungry seniors. Later as seniors left, they thanked Gregory for her work and complimented her and Poznysz’s cooking.

The recipes, she said, come from a combination of her own home cooking, online recipes and whatever ingredients the council finds in grocery stores, she said.

Gregory recommend that seniors who would like to participate in the weekly soups call 508-748-3570 by Tuesday to sign up for that Thursday’s event. Those picking up to-go lunches from the center should come at 12:30 p.m. to grab their meals, she said.