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Bowling for soup: Metro Relief hosts North Texas Soup-N-Bowl to raise money, awareness
By Marthe Stinton, mstinton@starlocalnews.com
Metro Relief is gearing up to get bowled over during its fourth annual North Texas Soup-N-Bowl, an event providing hot soup and cool soup bowls to participants and benefitting the organization's food pantry.
The North Texas Soup-N-Bowl, which will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Jan. 26 at The Tribute, 1000 Lebanon Road, will help combat hunger in the city by raising money and awareness for the issue while allowing attendees to meet community leaders. Tickets for the event are $20 for adults and $10 for youth, although children under 5 eat free with a donated canned good.
Lisa Leary has been on the planning committee for the Soup-N-Bowl for the past four years and knows how the results of the event benefit the community.
Metro Relief's full-service food pantry, The Storehouse, was founded in 2006 and provides weekly assistance to families in need, regardless of their current economic circumstances. When it first opened, the pantry had three volunteers working in a single room with a single shelf.
It is now the leading pantry in the community. The vast need represented by the unemployed and those who are financially strapped are quickly depleting food pantries across the country, according to the organization.
"We see our numbers jump every year as more and more people are coming in to get food," said Beth Doan, pantry director. "We haven't had that jump yet this year, but I look for it sometime in the spring or summer depending on what the economy does. People don't realize there are people hunger right in their own neighborhood."
It's not just The Colony that Metro Relief aims to serve, however. With their bus and volunteers in tow, the organization's members take weekly trips to South Dallas and Fort Worth delivering food to those in need. Each week, the organization has about 40 volunteers helping in their outreach programs and the food pantry. But, with the growing need, the organization always seeks more help.
Doan said the event is a great way to incorporate the pantry's need to raise both money and awareness.
"Whether it's by purchasing food or gas for the bus, all that money goes back into helping the community," she said. "Even though we live in a nice small town, there is an issue of hunger that people don't know about. There are kids that go to bed hungry, there are many families in The Colony that just can't make their budget stretch to pay for everything. A lot of times they will pay for other things first without thinking about paying for food - that needs to be one of the top things people pay for."
Last year's event welcomed more than 300 attendees, a number Doan hopes will grow each year. This year, the group is preparing enough soup for more than 500 people.
"Bring your kids, eat soup and visit the children's area," she said. "There will be a variety of soups there made by local chefs and restaurants and people will be able to eat. They can go and try different soups and at the end of the event they will be able to go and pick out a hand painted soup bowl to take home with them as a souvenir."
Tickets for the event can be purchased at the door or online at metrorelief.org. For a full list of restaurants providing soup, visit metrorelief.org.
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