The Kindness Community Market at Belfast Soup Kitchen has a new home, and it reflects just how far this vital resource has come.

United Midcoast Charities was honored to join BSK Executive Director Cherie Merrill and her team recently for a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the Market’s move into its own dedicated building on the BSK campus. What began as a community pantry has grown into something that needed, and now has, real room to flourish.

The new space gives the Kindness Community Market the capacity to expand its reach and better serve the people who depend on it. And if the energy at the ribbon cutting was any indication, the Belfast Soup Kitchen community is more than ready for this next chapter.

Perhaps the moment that said it most: UMC board member Karen Foxwell, a longtime BSK volunteer, stepped away from her morning dishwashing shift just long enough to cut the ribbon, take a few photos, and then headed right back to work. That kind of quiet, roll-up-your-sleeves dedication is exactly what has made Belfast Soup Kitchen such a cornerstone of the midcoast community.

UMC is proud to support the people behind this work, Cherie, Karen, and the many volunteers and staff who show up every day to make the Kindness Community Market possible. We can’t wait to see what they do with this wonderful new space.