The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Hageman shows caring for others comes naturally
TORRINGTON — For Lisa Hageman, charity and caring for others in time of need came naturally.
“I grew up in Goshen, and when you live in a small town, there is a sense of neighbors helping neighbors,” said Hagemen, the food service director of the Torrington Community Soup Kitchen. “My dad (William) was selectman and the fire chief, and when there would be a house fire or someone was sick, I was taught and shown to help your neighbor when they were in time of need. That stayed with me, and I brought that to the soup kitchen.”
When Hageman moved to Torrington 16 years ago, she immediately became involved with the kitchen. While it once served about 20 people a day, the facility now provides daily hot meals (breakfast and lunch) for 200 daily, as well as other services. It also serves as a social gathering place for those less fortunate in the community.
Because of her extraordinary efforts, Hageman was selected as The Register-Citizen’s 2018 Person of the Year. The Person of the Year is someone who has had an impact, worked for change or pursued a passion that has made a difference in the greater Torrington area.
Eight different readers nominated Hageman for the honor, “for her dedication and love of her community” and for “constantly fighting the good fight trying to help those who need it most.”
“Her work with the food challenged and less fortunate is outstanding,” said Sharon Waagner in her nomination. “She is loved and respected and always puts the needs of others before her own.”
Even though the Community Soup Kitchen does not receive local, state or federal funding, it serves more than 50,000 meals a year to people of Litchfield County, including more than 200 children.
Its operating budget is supported solely by donations from the public and through grants. Volunteers assist daily with the food preparation, serving, clean up and weekend coverage.
The kitchen also provides an opportunity for individuals to meet staff from area agencies and programs, for assistance with the many needs and problems they experience. The soup kitchen serves people from all walks of life, including homeless people and families and the working disadvantaged. A board of directors has oversight of the general operations of the kitchen.
“It really is an honor to be recognized, but this really is for all the people who help me make the soup kitchen happen,” Hageman said of being selected Person of the Year. “It is the soup kitchen that is being recognized. I’m humble and grateful that people voted for me, but this really is everybody’s award. If it wasn’t for all the help I receive from the community, the kitchen wouldn’t be able to operate. It takes a team to make it happen.”
Hageman is just returning to health after a severe illness. She was diagnosed with an e-coli infection in her lungs, which sent her to the hospital and then to a rest home for rehabilitation and recovery for more than two months, she said.
“It happened in early October. I was in a coma in the hospital for a number of days. I couldn’t walk or feed myself and I needed assistance being lifted out of bed. I came home the day before Thanksgiving,” she said. “All I could think of was that the holidays were coming and I had so much to do. It is a time when people really need us.”
The first thing she said after coming out of the coma was that she wanted a cheeseburger. Then she wanted to know what was going on down at the soup kitchen.
“I had so many visitors from the kitchen, so many clients, that they had to stop people from coming. The poverty community depends on me,” Hageman said. “The doctors said they didn’t want me driving and to stay away from the soup kitchen, but I had to be there at least a couple of hours a day. I was able to get some things done while I was recovering, thanks to my volunteers and others.”
Hageman takes pride in “being in the trenches” with her clients. She has faced her own challenges in life, and had to do hours of community service — all of which enhanced her empathy with those battling drug and alcohol abuse and addiction, she said.
“I know what my clients go through. Sometimes I’m all they have. I’m on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Hageman said. “I’ll take a phone call at 2 a.m. in the morning if someone is alone and scared or wants to use.
“They depend upon me and I’m firm with them,” she said. “The food is the foundation of what we do at the soup kitchen, but we provide other services as well and channel our clients to other agencies where they can find housing or a coat to keep them warm during the winter.”
Hageman has a simple but powerful philosophy that guides her mission.
“Food makes people feel happy,” she said. “You can’t function without food because it feeds the soul. If you are hungry, you can’t work. When we feed people, they are happier.”
The kitchen began serving breakfast to accommodate a number of people who were working part-time and couldn’t make lunch. Hageman plans to integrate dinner into the kitchen’s program three days a week to further cater to what she calls the “poor working class.”
The Torrington soup kitchen works thanks to donations from private people, businesses donations and grants.
“I use social media a lot these days and when we are in need of something I put a cry out,” Hageman said. “I put a cry out that we need pasta and I get 500 pounds of pasta. I put a cry out that we needed 35 homemade pies and I got 70. It’s a community effort.”
Hageman takes pride in the meals the kitchen prepares.
“All our meals are nutritious and healthy,” she said. “We cater to people with diabetes and high blood pressure. We have fresh vegetables every day.”
One of the local agencies Hageman works closely with is Operation Overflow, an emergency shelter system that opens its doors to the homeless on nights when the local shelter is full.
“I know Michele Smedick well — actually, I think my whole family voted for her to be the Person of the Year,” she said with a chuckle, referring to the program’s director. “We had a guy come in with slippers on. He was so hungry he inhaled a whole cake. He was clearly very hungry but he also needed clothes, so we worked with Michele to get him what he needed. It felt good eating Christmas dinner, knowing that we fed this man, clothed him and found him a place to stay.”
Hageman said the soup kitchen began to flourish when she went to what she calls “a zero tolerance policy.”
“There was a family that was walking back and forth on (Prospect) street and they clearly wanted to come in. I asked them to do that, but they said they were afraid because we were serving people who were using or drunk,” she said. “I decided then and there that you couldn’t come in if you were high or drunk. We make sure these people get fed, but we can’t have them high or smelling like booze sitting next to people who are in recovery or who have kids.”
Sometimes clients at the kitchen may need a bit of tough love, she said.
“You can’t be short-fused in this job,” she said. “But I talk to my clients and I’m firm with them when I have to be. If someone is slipping, I tell them to get back on track.”
While sustenance may be at the core of the Torrington Community Soup Kitchen, Hageman says running what has been called the second highest rated such operation in the state takes more than meat and potatoes.
“Beyond the food, it goes to compassion and caring,” she said. “Those things are just as important as feeding people.”
The Register Citizen started to profile a Person of the Year in 2011. Here’s a list from past years:
- 2017: Robert Geiger, town manager in Winsted
- 2016: Owen Quinn, executive director of United Way of Northwest Connecticut
- 2015: Deirdre Houlihan DiCara, executive director of Friends in Service to Humanity
- 2014: Ken Merz, secretary of O&G Industries
- 2013: Barbara Spiegel, executive director of Susan B. Anthony Project
- 2012: Former state. Sen. Andrew Roraback
- 2011: Steven Temkin, Steven Roth and David Bender, co-founders of Torrington Downtown Partners