Colorado College
IN-4: Innovation 4

The Soup Project is a collaboration between The Food Coalition and The Arts for Social Change Coalition at CC. For 23 years, there was a weekly community kitchen on Sunday offering a free meal to community members in need at the college. At its inception, the community kitchen on Sunday was the only one of its kind and served an important role in the Colorado Springs community. Over the last 20 years other Sunday community kitchens have been created, and the community kitchen at the college became disconnected from poverty and hunger efforts in Colorado Springs. Together, the Collaborative for Community Engagement and the Arts for Social Change Coalition are building on The Community Kitchen's 23 year legacy to imagine creative new ways of addressing poverty, hunger, and homelessness in Colorado Springs. Empty Bowls is an annual benefit addressing these topics. Empty Bowls has historically raised around $2,000 for The Community Kitchen Club by partnering with The Pottery Studio to sell handmade bowls. This year, Empty Bowls hosted the $20,000 Soup Project Challenge, which funds student designed social innovation projects addressing poverty hunger and homelessness in the local community. The four chosen projects: 1. Grits- Students will partner with the Marion House to run a weekly writing and visual arts program for their patrons which will culminate in a publication titled "Grits" that will be included in the Colorado Springs Independent and featured installments on KRCC. 2. Mobile Meals - This project will partner with organizations such as the Flying Carrot, Colorado Springs Food Rescue, and Seeds Community Cafe to bring healthy food and educational programs to the community. The project aims to provide a free meal and food education programs for low-income, low-access communities. 3. Ponderosa Pastries - This programs envisions partnering with Seeds Community Cafe to create a student-run cafe that connects students and the community through food and art. 4. The Family Day Center - Students envision an all-inclusive space that provides homeless families access to a variety of services without trips to multiple agencies throughout the city. The space will include access to showers, bathrooms, computers, an area for children, a homework tutoring center, as well as a mailing address and storage space.

Measurable outcomes of these projects include: -Reconnecting to the network addressing hunger, homelessness, and poverty in Colorado Springs. -The number of community members served -The output from each project (e.g. a publication in the Independent) -How many pastries sold and how much revenue generated -The number of students that attend programming at the community center for Mobile Meals -How many meals are provided -How many families do the programs work with

https://www.coloradocollege.edu/offices/cce/how-to-get-involved/community-kitchen/