The Story of Soup

Written by Claire Crowley

In the autumn of last year a number of interested people got together to talk about offering a warm bowl of soup in a warm place over the winter months.

Soup making and serving volunteers stepped up, surplus food was allocated, equipment purchased and a plan hatched!

Uppingham Town Council financially supported this initiative. Thanks for your support!

Each week at 8 am on a Friday morning, some yummy vegetables were prepared and all put in the slow cooker for the next few hours until lunchtime.

The process involved using a range of surplus food from our Rutland Community Fridges, saving the veggie peelings for composting, recycling any plastic in the Coop and buying any extras locally and as much as possible from the refill shop, A Simpler Life.

At lunchtime, people came to set up tables between them, eat, drink tea and coffee, make friends, have lovely chats and keep warm while waiting for the Rutland community fridge to open.

Local volunteers supported the smooth running of the Souper Space and students from Uppingham Community College proved to be great washer uppers!!

Around 500 bowls of soup have been served in the 20 weeks that we opened in only 2 hours each week! This, we think is a great success and we will offer soup again in the Autumn and Winter of this year.

Thanks to everyone involved in the concept, the planning, the volunteering, the friendship building and to those who suggested coming, to their friends.

Going forward, we will continue to open for tea, coffee, cake and chats.