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Hungry residents in Germantown may find their bellies a little fuller this year, thanks to the efforts of the three churches that comprise Germantown Avenue Lutheran Parish (GALP). For six weeks Christ Ascension (8300 Germantown Ave., 215-247-4233), St. Michael’s Lutheran Church (6671 Germantown Ave., 215-848-0199) and Trinity Lutheran Church (5300 Germantown Ave., 215-848-8150) were involved in City Soup, a city-wide interfaith campaign to combat Philadelphia’s shocking hunger statistics.
“One in four Philadelphians is what they call food insecure, which means they don’t have enough money to purchase an adequate and nutritious array of foods,” says City Soup creator Diane Loucke. “So we just said nuts, it’s time to do something different.”
Instead of continuing to simply encourage citizens to give canned foods or casseroles to local food shelters, Loucke says the intent of City Soup is to make strategic, systematic changes at the federal level. To accomplish this task she solicited local faith-based groups to take part in her six-week program, which educates through devotionals laid out on the City Soup Web site and asked families to make a meager pot of soup for dinner at least once per week. The money saved from this frugal meal creation would ideally be donated to a regional hunger fighting organization.
The program culminated with the Hunger Coalition’s 14th annual Walk for Hunger on April 11, an event that communications manager Ronna Bolante says traditionally raises up to $250,000 for local food pantries and agencies that help the hungry.
Though Loucke agrees that areas of Germantown suffer from enormous poverty, she says the majority of those involved with City Soup reside in the Germantown and Mt. Airy neighborhoods. “I know that they are responding actively to learn more about what they can do to improve this problem by working with the content inside City Soup.”
One such participant is Joanna Mullins, a lifetime member of GALP’s Trinity Lutheran Church. When not occupied by writing arts grants or entries for her own blog, she rallied Trinity’s 60-person congregation to get involved with City Soup and to take part in the walk at the end of the six-week journey. Thanks to her efforts, hundreds of dollars were raised for their donor of choice, Philabundance, a non-profit organization that that reports distributing 17 million pounds of food to hunger shelters across the Delaware Valley in 2009.
“The Germantown area has historically been big supporters of Philabundance,” says Deputy Director Marlo DeSardo. She says the City Soup and Walk for Hunger events garnered nearly $4000 regionally for the organization.
If you’re in need for a food shelter, check the Hunger Coalition’s Web page for a detailed map of pantries in the Germantown area. And even though the City Soup campaign has come to a completion for the spring, you may still have a chance to get involved this summer. Diane Loucke says she hopes to start another campaign that suits the warmer weather. “I want to call it City Salad,” she says. Check the Web site for possible updates.
Greetings! Excellent article! I believe I met you at the “soup” at Trinity. There are a few typos however. We are St. Michael’s Lutheran Church…and our phone number is 215-848-0199. Would be nice if our website was linked in your article! Thanks! Pastor Ingram
Great article, Josh, and super to work with you! One thing: Trinity’s church office phone is 215-848-8150, and that’s the better one to call – though I think the church building number routes to the office.
Oh, and we got another $100 over the week. 🙂
Joanna Mullins