The Soup Bowl: Filling needy stomachs with food and love

The Soup Bowl Partner Erandi Narangoda, The Soup Bowl Partner Jamie Alphonsus and The Soup Bowl Founder Rishani Sittampalam - Pic by Shehan Gunasekera  

By Fathima Riznaz Hafi

A year ago Rishani Sittampalam decided she wanted to help the poor. She wanted to feed them, while also bringing them joy in other ways.

After contemplating how to play her part in making a difference, she came up with an idea. She decided to cook food and serve it to street people as well as people residing in elders’ homes, children’s homes and various places that needed assistance but didn’t want to stop at only giving them food – she wanted to invite them to a place, serve them and treat them to a joyful, fun-filled time while enjoying a wholesome meal. 

Realising that it would be difficult to carry out her mission alone, she spoke to two of her friends who she knew would be the perfect partners to assist her. Erandi Narangoda and Jamie Alphonsus then came into the picture and ‘The Soup Bowl’ was thereby launched on 8 January 2014 with Rishani as the Founder and Erandi and Jamie as Partners. Since then the three of them have been carrying out various projects to fulfil their cause. 

How does The Soup Bowl operate?

“We invite the poor to the table to provide a homely experience. It’s a sit-down meal – we don’t hand over food parcels. If we do, sometimes they sell the parcels probably because some of them need the money more. We try to feed people living on the streets and provide a family atmosphere. It’s a proper dining experience,” said Rishani.

The Soup Bowl also goes to a home (elders or children) with entertainment of different sorts and a meal, to spend quality time with the elders or the children. They’ve gone to several homes – the Ebenezer Gardens Girls’ Home, Boys’ Industrial Home and many others – each month a different one and do what they can to help.

“If people come and ask us if we can go to a certain home, we go with a meal and gifts and the visit is designed around an activity – a type of entertainment, singing, dancing or craft,” she said.

“When we go to a home, we not only give them food, we look into their needs. We ask them what they require – not temporary but long-term needs, such as bed sheets and mattresses and if we can meet those needs, we do. We also leave rations. 

“Right now we are collecting toys for children’s homes. When we are about to go there, we will inform the volunteers and they can go there and donate the toys or they can give it to us – whichever is convenient,” said Erandi. 

“In addition to the homes, we also visit the CCC Foundation once a month to have a time of craft with children who have cancer. At the CCC we don’t normally serve food – unless we have someone offering to provide food as there are around 150 patients there; we go there to show the kids a good time, mainly with craft work,” she said.    

Going strong after one-and-a-half years, their latest project was carried out two weeks ago on 30 May at the Cheshire Elders’ Home in Mt. Lavinia. Sticking to their mode of not just providing the food, they organised it as a classy high tea event with music, dancing and craftwork, along with good food. 

 

The team

While Rishani is the brain behind The Soup Bowl (TSB), the work that the other two put in certainly adds to the smooth and creative running of the projects. Erandi is an events organiser by profession while Jamie is a creative designer and Rishani is a writer for Yamu. Each of them has an area of expertise and together the three of them input what they are best at when carrying out their projects.

“Erandi is very good with props; the very creative area is handled by her. She’s also our event organiser, handling most of the marketing, HR and organising duties. Jamie manages the social media part; she handles all the promotion work – the updating, marketing, designing and networking through Facebook,” Rishani said. 

“We also have a volunteer base, where people come forward offering different things. They have various talents. Some are good at decor, some entertain and even sing and dance along with the guests. Others offer food or come over to the relevant home or institution that the charity work is taking place and help serve the guests.

“The response has been very good because we don’t ask people for money; we ask them to give us stuff. We ask people to open their homes for a home-cooked meal. I live on rent and Jamie lives far away so we can’t do this in our own homes so we ask people who live in the area to help. Mostly people who cater and people who know us offer their places but even strangers have opened their homes to us and we go there and cook the meals. It’s always a home-cooked meal that we serve – we don’t buy from outside. We have received a lot of help and more volunteers are always welcome,” Rishani said.  

“We want the community to get involved with us, especially with helping the residents in the elders’ homes. There are so many homes – around one in each area. There are so many elders in the homes and they look forward to young people coming. They don’t want things – they just want people coming in. It’s more about the fellowship than anything else. We don’t want to just give the food and walk away – they are lonely,” Jamie added. 

 

WeGiveStuffAway

WeGiveStuffAway (WGSA) is an initiative of TSB which provides a bag of groceries anonymously to people who are finding it hard to make ends meet. It works by a process of nomination, where the community can nominate a person they know who is struggling – it could be the maid who works for them, cleaners, single parents, people who are unemployed, labour workers, day workers – anyone who would benefit from a bag of groceries.

“If you know someone who needs a bag of groceries and inform us, we would provide a bagful which would suffice for two weeks. All we need is a credible story of the reasons why they need a bag of groceries and their details (address).”

 

Street people

In July, The Soup Bowl plans to start working more actively with street people and connect with them. They haven’t worked out exactly what they’re going to do yet but are very interested in working with street kids.

“Most street people are reluctant to come to a place when we invite them probably because they not very trustful – the last time we tried this very few people came because some think they’re going to be harmed but I think if we continue to do this and create a relationship, they will eventually come to a place when we open it. That’s what we’re going to start in July. 

“We have a few people who have already offered their place to carry out our work and eventually when we invite the street people over for meals, we can also get a group of volunteers to come to us and provide free services such as haircuts, pedicures and other grooming facilities; maybe a set of clothes too.” 

They won’t be doing that just yet but hope to progress towards it. 

 

Their very own Soup Kitchen

The Soup Bowl’s ultimate goal is to establish a place where the poor can just walk in and eat for free. It will serve as a hangout where people can relax, mingle and eat.

“We have a lot of future plans but our biggest dream is to have our own Soup Bowl Kitchen, whereby people can come to us and sit down in a place as big as this or even bigger than this, where we can cook our meals and serve them,” Erandi said taking a glance around us in the Park Street Mews.

“We especially hope to help elderly people because there are so many who are neglected; they don’t have family or a connection. It would be nice if they can come to our Soup Kitchen and just hang out,” said Rishani. They will get volunteers to come over and continue to provide the grooming facilities here as well.

“If we could actually take them off the streets and give them a livelihood, where they don’t beg and go back to a normal life, that would be our success story,” she added. 

“The Soup Bowl page on Facebook is where we notify everyone about our activities and needs. If people can keep an eye on our page and see how they can connect with us – there is a lot they can do. To make a donation or nominate someone who needs a bag of groceries, they can write to us at [email protected].”