HOUSTON — Imagine more than 500 professional sports stadiums filled with hungry people. That’s the need in America on any given day.
"We have over a million Houstonians that are struggling with food insecurity,” Souper Bowl of Caring Executive Director Alison Reese said.
Houston-based Souper Bowl of Caring is a nonprofit founded with a prayer decades ago on Super Bowl weekend.
“Lord, even as we enjoy this Super Bowl football game, help us be mindful of those who don’t have a bowl of soup to eat,” Reese said.
The organization teamed up this year with, among others, KHOU and the Houston ISD Foundation.
The game plan was to help fill 50 school food pantries operated through HISD’s Wraparound Services Department which provides basic essentials to students and their families.
West University Elementary School, a longtime Souper Bowl supporter, produced creative videos to raise more than $25,000.
"This is vital," HISD Officer of Nutrition Services Betti Wiggins said. "This is absolutely vital.”
Wiggins helps oversee the district’s massive pandemic-related food giveaways and sees the need first hand.
"A hungry child cannot learn and an absent child learns nothing," Wiggins said. "And when you come from a household where people are hungry, there’s no sense of well-being.”
The Souper Bowl of Caring has raised more than $30,000,000 for Houston food charities since its inception. This year’s effort should help sustain many more.
"And, certainly, it makes a huge difference for those families in those communities,” Reese said.
