ThisWeek CW 02072013
http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/canalwinchester/news/2013/02/05/souper-bowl-scores-again-for-community-food-pantry.html
The Community Food Pantry’s Souper Bowl scored a victory against hunger.
Several hundred attendees joined the pantry’s staff for this year’s Super Bowl Sunday event Feb. 3, which included a luncheon of soup and bread and silent auction.
Canal Winchester Human Services, local businesses and organizations, along with several individuals, pulled together to donate the food and silent auction items.
“Last year we had over 300 people attend, so we were really excited to have even more this year,” Human Services administrator, Penny Miller said.
According to Miller, a steady stream of people attended the Souper Bowl from the time the doors opened at 11 a.m. all the way through closing at 2 p.m.
As with last year, students from across the school district helped to make the event possible, including the Canal Winchester High School Art Department, which made more than 150 ceramic bowls to donate to the cause. These bowls were then sold to attendees for a donation of $10 or more each.
The elementary and middle school art classes donated decorative placemats and signs, while 10-year-old Jacob Reher donated one of his detailed pencil drawings to be a part of the silent auction.
“We have a little third-grade boy, Evan Lopez, who has been fighting leukemia,” Miller said. “His family was told there was nothing left to do — obviously the family has been devastated by this and has been struggling. Hearing this, Jacob, who’s Evan’s friend and is already an accomplished artist, took it upon himself to offer prints of some of the comic figures he’s drawn at $10 each, to raise money for the family.”
Lopez lost his battle with cancer on Jan. 30.
Reher’s efforts resulted in $2,600 going to the family, Miller said, and inspired the pantry to include his framed art at the Souper Bowl, also earmarked for support of the Lopez family.
“We think of emergency assistance, in its many forms, as part of our mission and felt this family is certainly in need at this moment,” Miller said. “So it just made sense that we’d accept the portrait Jacob drew to auction off for them.”
All of the donations for the pantry from the luncheon and silent auction are still being tallied, but according to Miller she expects the final numbers to be even better than last year.
“Events like this only happen because of the great volunteers and the community turning out to support it,” Miller said. “This has been another success.”
The Community Food Pantry relies on year round donations to provide for those in need, for more information visit cwhumanservices.org.