On a blustery March day, the women at the Wander Inn community kitchen in Polson were serving up more than hot soup.

The chatter was warm, the handshakes sincere as residents from all walks of life gathered for a meal and some home-grown hospitality. Volunteers bustled in the kitchen, and on the serving line more volunteers dished up steaming bowls of soup, delivering them to outstretched hands.

It goes like this four days a week at the Wander Inn, based at the Journey Be church in Polson. The Soup’s On community lunches started in 2009 amid the worst recession since the Great Depression. The program has grown stronger through the years.

“In a rural area like ours, we face tremendous challenges. Many folks suffer the pain of poverty and social isolation,” said Sandy Farrell, who helped start Soup’s On and continues to shepherd the project.

The idea of free midday soup lunches sprang from a successful Friday night meal program — the Family and Friendship Table — offered by a number of Polson area churches.

Journey Be’s pastor, the Rev. John Payne, was involved in starting the Friday night dinners and saw the need for more community meals.

While many of the 50 to 60 people who partake of the daily Soup’s On meals are low-income, others simply come for the social contact, volunteer Suzy Marshall said.

“A lot of people are alone. They come to be sociable,” she said.

Donations of food for Soup’s On come from a number of sources, from individual offerings of money and food to a partnership with the Loaves and Fishes Food Bank. The program has its own garden patch at the Wander Inn that supplements the meals during the summer months.

Even with generous donations, the program relies on fundraisers to continue. Last month volunteers erected a tepee at the Wander Inn and slept there for several nights to raise awareness about hunger and homelessness in Polson, Farrell said. The community has no homeless shelter, although the Wander Inn has a couple of rooms for temporary housing.

A sign outside the tepee declared: “We’re not coming in until we raise $8,000.”

The group exceeded that goal and raised $9,000, Marshall said, adding that a winter dance and auction contributed to the fundraising effort.

Some of the money has been earmarked to upgrade the aging kitchen at the Wander Inn and upgrade the sleeping quarters.

Last year Soup’s On and the Family and Friendship Table programs served more than 12,000 meals and provided more than 300 shelter days.

Soup’s On serves from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday at the Wander Inn, 101 Seventh Ave. W. in Polson. Donations can be sent to the same address. For more information call Farrell at 871-1109.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.