Tri-Town duo put their cooking ‘chops’ to good use

MARION — When the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — better known as SNAP — went unfunded for part of November 2025, two Tri-Town residents had just begun a food assistance program of their own.

Meg Albert, of Marion, and Patty Nicholson, of Mattapoisett, have been cooking together for years, and were looking for a way to give back to their community.

They raised donations from friends and family, and reached out to Damien's Food Pantry in Wareham before they got chopping.

The duo make about 80 quarts of soup for the pantry each week, providing hungry families with a warm, nutritious meal.

“It's feeding the hungry and the needy in a special way,” Albert said. “It really didn't have anything to do with SNAP, but it turned out that it coincided with the SNAP problem.”

The two chefs had been planning on starting their weekly cooking sessions for months, but Albert said concern about SNAP funding gave them a boost in their fundraising efforts and helped them start the project.

The duo are retired, and said they wanted to use their free time to help others.

“(Nicholson) and I just talked about it and we wanted to do something for other people,” Albert said. “We both love to cook.”

Nicholson owned the now-closed Harriet's Catering and has an extensive culinary background. Albert asked for a job at the restaurant one day, and the two have been friends since.

The former restaurateur said she missed cooking when she closed her business, and still cooks in her free time. She said the weekly soup donations are a way to keep up with her love for cooking and keep her skills sharp.

“We needed to keep cooking. Our dicing hands were getting weak — you can't have that happening,” she joked.

Albert and Nicholson raised about $4,800 when they began last year, and have used those funds to purchase ingredients and a new stove to increase their output.

Damien’s has been a willing partner, and Albert said the pantry welcomed their donations. It also supplements their own grocery shopping, donating vegetables and meat for them to include in the soups.

Nicholson said volunteers tell them pantry patrons are always “thrilled with the soup,” although the 80 portions they make each week aren’t enough to feed the approximately 350 people who visit Damien’s each day.

When they began, their goal was to make about 160 quarts of soup each week. Albert and Nicholson hope to reach this goal with the purchase of a new stove and more volunteers.

“We're about halfway there, and I hope we get to that level,” Nichols said. With their industrial-sized stove, they could “make it at the speed of light compared to doing it on a little home stove.”

They said in the months since they began donating their soups, they’ve used the majority of the money they originally raised.

Along with volunteers, the duo said they hope to raise additional funds to keep financing their weekly shopping trips.

“It's a nice way to donate to the food pantry in a creative way, instead of bringing canned goods to your local church — although that's important too,” Albert said.

Donations can be made by check to Meg Albert at 11 Cottage St., PO Box 697 or Venmo at  Margaret-Albert-12.