{"id":229273,"date":"2025-09-15T17:42:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T17:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/229273\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T17:42:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T17:42:14","slug":"the-stewpot-celebrates-50-years-with-release-of-thy-neighbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/229273\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stewpot Celebrates 50 Years with Release of \u2018Thy Neighbor\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Stewpot<\/a>, a First Presbyterian Church of Dallas organization that provides social services and programming for Dallasites experiencing homelessness and poverty, is celebrating its 50th anniversary next month.<\/a><\/p>\n

To celebrate, one of the running programs of the mission, the Writers\u2019 Workshop<\/a>, recently compiled work from some of the attendees and artists of The Stewpot Art Program into a book titled Thy Neighbor: Stories of Struggle, Strength, and Shared Humanity<\/a> which is available to those who support The Stewpot with a donation of $30 or more.<\/a><\/p>\n

Oak Cliff\u2019s William \u2018Bill\u2019 McKenzie<\/a> and North Dallas\u2019s Poppy Sundeen<\/a> are two of the three editors of the book, but have worked with the workshop for years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bill McKenzie (left) during a Writers\u2019 Workshop. Photo courtesy of The Stewpot.<\/p>\n

McKenzie is a contributing columnist for The Dallas Morning News and the senior editorial advisor for the George Bush Institute. Sundeen is a now-retired writer with over 45 years of experience in advertising and marketing.<\/p>\n

Sundeen learned about the program after someone asked if she would like to buy a copy of The STREEZINE.\u00a0 After reading the copy, she began donating to The Stewpot and started volunteering six years ago, using her background as a writer to publish articles for The STREETZine.<\/p>\n

McKenzie joined The Stewpot as a member of First Presbyterian since 1993, often working as a volunteer serving meals. He began brainstorming about how to get more involved in The Stewpot around 2019 or 2020, starting the weekly workshop soon after.<\/p>\n

About the time he was getting involved as a volunteer with The Stewpot, McKenzie learned that the previous editor of The STREETZine<\/a>, a street paper published since 2003 by The Stewpot, had recently passed away about the time he was getting involved as a volunteer with The Stewpot. With a background in writing himself, this sparked what is today\u2019s weekly writing workshop.<\/p>\n

At first, The STREETZine and Writers\u2019 Workshop did not meet together, but now they work in tandem, McKenzie said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a value for people to be able to have a voice to tell their story, and in some cases, that\u2019s kind of cathartic,\u201d Sundeen said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Poppy Sundeen (right) during a Writers\u2019 Workshop. Photo courtesy of The Stewpot.<\/p>\n

The two projects have developed several opportunities for the community to tell their stories, such as working with the Dallas Media Collaborative and publishing pieces in The Dallas Morning News. The STREETZine continues to distribute a monthly paper around the city and through the International Network of Street Papers<\/a>, along with online blog posts.<\/p>\n

The editors were inspired by a book they read about different people who were homeless, mostly in Canada, and then at one moment the light went off that The Stewpot needed a book, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just kept brainstorming it and pitched the idea to The Stewpot leadership and started exploring. If we\u2019re going to do this, how do we get it published? And one thing led to another,\u201d McKenzie said.<\/p>\n

Thy Neighbor is a compilation of essays done during the Writers\u2019 Workshops, featuring the works of nine writers alongside artwork done by Stewpot artists. McKenzie said the book highlights the complexities of life and \u201cthe image of God in all of us.\u201d Through three chapters, the book follows the experiences of being unhoused, searching for a home and what it means to love thy neighbor.<\/p>\n

Sundeen came up with the name for the book based on an experience with an unhoused neighbor who shared that to him First Presbyterian truly practices what they preach.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe specifically said that, you know, he felt like they were following the biblical edict to love thy neighbor,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The work the writers put into their craft at The Stewpot and for Thy Neighbor has impressed McKenzie during the year-long process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was struck by their honesty and their willingness to share their stories,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t recall anybody saying, \u2018I really don\u2019t want to do this.\u2019 And with all of our writings, nobody has to do it. They do get paid when they are published in the street scene upon publication, we paid for the book, and so on, but nobody had to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sundeen echoed that sentiment, saying that the subjects of the group are willing to share their stories despite the hard topics and vulnerabilities that come with it, building a strong connection for everyone involved in the workshops. Every Friday morning is spent not only sharing their writing, but their everyday experiences both good and bad.<\/p>\n

The book highlights to readers that people experiencing homelessness are no different than anybody else, McKenzie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want people to read the book and realize that everyone who is unhoused or has gone through this experience has had a unique story. I want people to stop stereotyping unhoused people,\u201d Sundeen said. \u201cI want them to see the individuality there and the value of the people who are our neighbors at The Stewpot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Stewpot, a First Presbyterian Church of Dallas organization that provides social services and programming for Dallasites experiencing…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":229274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-229273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-tx","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115209552026873204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}