2008 Woodie Awards
"Souper Bowl" raises money and food for less fortunate
Kristine Duker
Issue date: 2/7/08 Section: News
The ONE campaign in collaboration with the Peer Mentoring Program, Campus Ministry and the Student events team sponsored the "Souper Bowl."
The Souper Bowl is a campaign that was started by a church youth group to raise money and collect food for food pantries and soup kitchens.
"The need is tremendous this year. More and more working families need the food pantries to put bread on the table, partly due to the high cost of housing locally, plus increased costs for gas and heating oil," said Phyllis Machledt, Director of Service Learning.
Sacred Heart joined the campaign over eight years ago and ever since the school has been raising money and holding food drives to donate to St. Charles Food Pantry in Bridgeport.
Sacred Heart University was the first college in Connecticut to participate in the cause.
The campaign initiated by Father Mark, Phyllis Machledt, and Mike Fazzino tried to get students to donate cans, other non-perishable foods, as well as money.
Sacred Heart raised over $1300 though students donating via Flik meal money. Students were able to donate money off of their meal plan to the Souper Bowl at the end of the fall semester.
"Part of the problem is that many people donate food very generously at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but in January the shelves are bare. Heating bills are usually higher in January and February as well for the families," said Machledt.
According to Machledt, the SHU community was incredibly generous during the Thanksgiving food drive.
"Sixty families were 'adopted' for the Christmas basket program and another fifteen to twenty were adopted by the Health professions. Unfortunately, the food we gave in November and December has been eaten," said Machledt
The Souper Bowl works directly with the One Campaigns goal to eliminate poverty and disease in the third world countries. However this campaign is focused more on the poverty in our own neighborhoods.
Last Saturday, February 2nd, students were able to register for teams to compete in the "can-struction".
The "can-struction" took place in the University Commons, where each team competed to see who had the best design. Voting took place Sunday after mass. The winner took home a $100 Gift card to Buffalo Wild Wings and four tickets to the Tony Dungy lecture.
"While there are hungry individuals year-round, soup kitchens seem to run out more often than not right after the holiday season. Bridgeport wasn't spared from this unfortunate trend, and the soup kitchen at St. Charles was actually forced to close down because of this," said Mike Fazzino, Chair of the Souper Bowl campaign.
The campaign is looking for a longtime solution to deal with the problem of poverty in third world countries along with the poverty in the United States.
"Children shouldn't be going hungry in the third wealthiest county in the US," said Machledt.
The Souper Bowl is a campaign that was started by a church youth group to raise money and collect food for food pantries and soup kitchens.
"The need is tremendous this year. More and more working families need the food pantries to put bread on the table, partly due to the high cost of housing locally, plus increased costs for gas and heating oil," said Phyllis Machledt, Director of Service Learning.
Sacred Heart joined the campaign over eight years ago and ever since the school has been raising money and holding food drives to donate to St. Charles Food Pantry in Bridgeport.
Sacred Heart University was the first college in Connecticut to participate in the cause.
The campaign initiated by Father Mark, Phyllis Machledt, and Mike Fazzino tried to get students to donate cans, other non-perishable foods, as well as money.
Sacred Heart raised over $1300 though students donating via Flik meal money. Students were able to donate money off of their meal plan to the Souper Bowl at the end of the fall semester.
"Part of the problem is that many people donate food very generously at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but in January the shelves are bare. Heating bills are usually higher in January and February as well for the families," said Machledt.
According to Machledt, the SHU community was incredibly generous during the Thanksgiving food drive.
"Sixty families were 'adopted' for the Christmas basket program and another fifteen to twenty were adopted by the Health professions. Unfortunately, the food we gave in November and December has been eaten," said Machledt
The Souper Bowl works directly with the One Campaigns goal to eliminate poverty and disease in the third world countries. However this campaign is focused more on the poverty in our own neighborhoods.
Last Saturday, February 2nd, students were able to register for teams to compete in the "can-struction".
The "can-struction" took place in the University Commons, where each team competed to see who had the best design. Voting took place Sunday after mass. The winner took home a $100 Gift card to Buffalo Wild Wings and four tickets to the Tony Dungy lecture.
"While there are hungry individuals year-round, soup kitchens seem to run out more often than not right after the holiday season. Bridgeport wasn't spared from this unfortunate trend, and the soup kitchen at St. Charles was actually forced to close down because of this," said Mike Fazzino, Chair of the Souper Bowl campaign.
The campaign is looking for a longtime solution to deal with the problem of poverty in third world countries along with the poverty in the United States.
"Children shouldn't be going hungry in the third wealthiest county in the US," said Machledt.
Be the first to comment on this story