The Stan and Shen Show was on the road, stopping in at the St. Luke Daily Bread Pantry before a lunchen attended by several of the organizations that make up Schenectady Shares, and benefit from the organization's buying and distribution power.

Guests this week included Larry Lewis, President, Concern for the Hungry; Macella Dietz, Treasurer, St. Luke's Daily Bread Pantry, Schenectady County legislator, and Schenectady Shares co-chair Mike Aragosa and Jacqueline Clute, Executive Director of the St. Luke's Daily Bread Food Pantry.

Each guest provided their own special insight to food insecurity within Schenectady County and the importance of the Schenectady Shares program as it prepared to kick off its 2026 campaign, 'Neighbors Helping Neighbors' to gain 30,000 pounds of food and $30,000 for the organization through mid-April.

Shenan couldn't have been more excited to talk about Schenectady Restaurant Week and bring her boss, Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corp. Executive Director Maureen Neufeld to the podcast studio.

Maureen has a keen insight into what restaurant week means for those eateries in the Downtown Schenectady area as well as the surrounding County.

Shenan, well, she just like to talk about food.

It worked out as the podcast co-hosts now have plans for dinner and a show during restaurant week with their best friends.

It's not often we get to offer breaking news on our podcast, BUT we did!

Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corp. Executive Director Maureen Neufeld (Shen's boss), joined us in the podcast studio with Simone's Kitchen, Bashir Chedrawee to announce that the 3-time winner of Downtown Schenectady Soup Stroll will not be competing!

But he will still have his hand in Soup Stroll.... Lots of cooks in the kitchen this week!

Chedrawee offers insight into what goes into a winning soup, how he judges soup for his own take on Soup Stroll this year, with his staff and the gang had fun with all of the entries coming up Jan. 31.

Grab a cup of soup and sit back and enjoy!