CHIPS Shelter and Soup Kitchen Bounces Back After Five-Alarm Fire

Park Slope Christian Help, a Catholic soup kitchen and shelter for teenage mothers and their children, started to serve only brown bag lunches after next door in September. The fire ruined the nine residences, kitchen, dining room and all the food and possessions in the five-floor building.

On September 23, firefighters came to the blaze around 12 p.m. and stayed for 24 hours. The auto supply store was filled with flammable chemicals and car batteries that kept reigniting, keeping the FDNY and their hoses on call.

About 100 people evacuated CHIPS, which has been running as a soup kitchen since 1972, as the fire broke out, leaving half-eaten meals in the dining room and all of their belongings in the shelter, including clothes, cribs, baby formula, diapers and toys.

. Many windows were also shattered and each floor was flooded.

“It was pouring rain and you could feel the heat coming from the fire, it was intense,” Sister Mary Maloney said, who has been the director of CHIPS for 25 years, which is part of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor.

The nine teenage mothers and their children, who stay for about a year, receive education, self-reliance and job training before they are out on their own, have been living in hotels and will not be back in their studio apartments until the construction is done, which is slated to be complete by Christmas.

The Fourth Avenue soup kitchen, which feeds about 200 people a hot, nutritious meal everyday, and the shelter, the Frances Residence, which has been operating for 13 years, has been closed since the fire. But the dining room and kitchen is completely redone with new walls, a ceiling, tables and floors.

The soup kitchen, which is between Sackett and Degraw streets, will be back in action this Monday, November 21 and will be serving a three-course Thanksgiving dinner from 11:30 a.m. until the food runs out.

“We always have enough food for everybody,” said Maloney.

The soup kitchen will serve turkey, stuffing, sweet and mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, vegetables, pies and apple cider for up to 300 people.

Painting is almost complete, with five studio apartments finished. The walls next to Danken’s had to be torn down and rebuilt. Most of the floors had to be redone as well.

Stanley Platos, the head painter, said about 70 percent of the painting is done and two rooms are ready to go.

“Everything will be all new again,” Platos said while standing in a near-finished apartment on Tuesday. 

“But it wasn’t worth the loss,” Maloney said.

CHIPS, which began as part of St. Francis Xavier Church over 40 years ago, relies solely on donations and the work of 100 volunteers. There are five teams that run the soup kitchen and brown bag lunch from Monday through Friday and five teams on Saturday.

The volunteers come from eight different local schools, religious groups, Park Slope Food Co-op members and there is even a program for autistic children to come help out everyday. 

Insurance will help pay for some of the damage caused by the fire, but Maloney said that the demolition and cleaning alone cost $51,000 and the reconstruction will cost about $150,000.

A new fire alarm system needs to be installed, which is priced at $2,000. Also, all of the mothers’ and their children’s belongings need to be replaced along with new mattresses, baby formula, diapers and toys.

“It’s like putting nine homes back together again,” Maloney said, who was a nurse in Brazil and Africa for 14 years until she came to CHIPS 25 years ago.

But as Maloney took a look around the sparkling kitchen, luckily all the stainless steel appliances were salvaged, she was happy to be able to say that the soup kitchen will be back up and running on Monday.

“It means a lot, winter is coming and most of the people who come here are seriously hungry,” said Maloney, who was born in Bay Ridge. “A bag lunch holds them over, but we are really excited to serve hot meals again. This is the only real meal many of them get a day.”

CHIPS also gives out 150 bags of groceries every Friday. 

“They touch us, it’s so great to see someone who is cold and hungry leave with a smile on their face,” Maloney said. “No one got hurt and the soup kitchen is ready to go before Thanksgiving, so you can’t ask for anything more.”

If you wish to volunteer for or donate to CHIPS, go to chipsonline.org.