Toolkit Contents

Introduction

Welcome to City Soup, a six-week journey to learn about hunger in America today, and specifically in the Greater Philadelphia Region.  We are suggesting that you gather with a community of your choice, whether that is your church, synagogue, mosque, ashram, sangah, meeting house, co-workers, family or group of friends.  This is a journey to make with others because, together, our learning, reflection and deeper understanding can engender positive change toward this growing crisis in America.

Each week you will learn about an aspect of hunger.  You will get to know someone’s personal story, whether that be a person who suffers from hunger-related issues, or is a hunger advocate or policy maker.  You will learn the facts.  You will find out what our nation has done in the past and will learn more about soup kitchens and food cupboards , as well as organizations and agencies in our area that are fighting hunger every day.  You will start to ask yourself disturbing questions and wonder about solutions.

As you are learning about these things, we are asking you to spend time with one another, talking about them in a broader way and imagining how we might go beyond what we’ve tried in the past.  Creative imagination, based on a course of education and internal reflection, can move mountains.

We have to find new ways to address hunger.  Changes in policy require changes in thinking.  Perhaps as we journey these six weeks, reading, reflecting, discussing, walking, sharing a simple soup meal and donating our savings, we will begin to think differently with a deeper understanding of the problem of hunger and everything it engenders in our society.

We invite you to come with us on this journey, with our Creator as our force and guide, to change the silent and sorrowful course of hunger in our City.

Register now for City Soup

If you have any questions, ideas, suggestions or recipes, please contact City Soup at citysoupphilly@gmail.com.