Cristin Cooper
Rev. Cristin Cooper is a pastor, chef, entrepreneur, and founder of Coop’s Soups, a social enterprise that uses food as a vehicle for building community and belonging. A licensed local pastor in the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church with an M.Div. from Wesley Theological Seminary, Cristin began her ministry by gathering neighbors around soup and bread in her apartment; Coop’s Soups grew from that experiment into an unconventional form of ministry rooted in farmers markets, shared meals, locally sourced food, and relationships between neighbors. Through soup-making, food donations, community gatherings, and the simple invitation to share a jar with someone else, her work explores how hospitality and everyday encounters can combat loneliness, create belonging, and turn the ordinary act of feeding one another into a form of community care.