Organized by Social Worker Stephanie Aguilar, the Souper Bowl of Caring Food Drive collected canned goods from students and teachers last November and December. Students and teachers participated in the national food drive to gather items for the school food pantry.

“During the breaks, the Faith Lutheran Church, Bellaire was very generous and donated us food and what we requested,” Aguilar said. “We still have some leftovers from that, but it was pretty much almost wiped out. So this is perfect timing, as we prepare for spring break, since I always like to make sure we’re stocked before the breaks. Some kids go home and they don’t have food, and some of them don’t eat over the break, so I want to make sure we help with that.”

Associate Pastor Junfung Tan gathered and donated the items that came from the Faith Bellaire Church. He learned about Bellaire’s food pantry from Kathy Patrick, the former president of their church council, who reached out to Aguilar.

“Our church believes that caring for neighbors in need is an essential part of our ministry,” Tan said. “Last October and November, during the government shutdown, the Food Stamp program became inaccessible for many families struggling to put food on the table. We were grateful for the opportunity to support students and families facing food insecurity. Because Bellaire High School is part of our local community, it felt especially meaningful to help in a direct and practical way.”

The giving spirit was continued by teachers who decided to participate in the food drive, including dual credit social studies teacher Sandhya Lawrence. Lawrence encouraged her students to participate through a class competition with a prize of a pizza party.

“Food insecurity is an increasing concern in our society today,” Lawrence said. “If we are able to reach out to our community in this little way, they know that they are loved and cared for; it creates a ripple effect, and they can forward it someday.”

Junior Elizabeth Charbonneau is a regular participant in food drives like the Souper Bowl of Caring. Previously, she’s contributed multiple-pound bags of rice, beans and canned corn.

“I participate because I want to give back to my community, and I feel like giving out food to those who have it, for lack of better words, worse off than a lot of us do,” Charbonneau said. “I feel like that is really noble and just a kind of good thing to do for your community. I definitely think we should have as much contribution to any food drives that we have because a lot of the Bellaire community are able to contribute, and I feel like they should, just to better the community.”

Any leftover food from Aguilar’s food pantry gets passed onto the Sunrise Centers and elementary schools in Bellaire’s feeder pattern. Sunrise Centers are hubs of resources, stocking hygiene and food items for underprivileged communities, with the closest ones being Baker Ripley and Marian Park Community Center.

“There’s already been community centers that have maybe been underutilized,” Aguilar said. “The district has partnered with these community centers there who already have resources and things that they offer. Now, it’s HISD plus the community center in one location. The community center is attached to the schools, and they’re getting more connection to the families.”

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Dhara Agrawal

Stephanie Aguilar helps to maintain a food pantry for the underprivileged Bellaire community. The donations from the Souper Bowl of Caring was used to restock the pantry before Spring Break.

Tackle Hunger is a big reason why the Sunrise Centers are able to maintain their resources, according to Executive Director Allison Reese. Partnering with HISD has benefits for both slides, as HISD’s West University Elementary School was one of the biggest contributors to collecting items for the food pantries, with over 125,000 pounds of food being donated in one week.

“In HISD and in most schools today, there are school food pantry programs, which can be directly supported through the Souper Bowl of Caring or a Tackle Hunger Challenge,” Reese said. “In fact, the reason that HISD pantries in schools are called “Souper Pantries” is because of us and our program guiding and helping them find the seed money to start the program.”

Reese has been coordinating the food drive for over eight years, over which they have raised over $42 million for food charities with over $15 million worth of in-kind donations.

“Using the energy of the Big Game, we ask a simple yet significant question: What if everyone watching the Big Game gave just $1 or 1 item to a local food charity?” Reese said. “Our organization organizes this effort and recruits new groups to take on this annual challenge.”

Using social media, word of mouth and collaborations with schools, churches and civic organizations (like 4-H, Scouts and Jack and Jill of America), Reese and Tackle Hunger have been able to keep the food drive going since 1989.

“The Souper Bowl of Caring was started with a prayer — ‘Even as we enjoy this Super Bowl Football Game, let us be mindful of those without a bowl of soup to eat,’” Reese said. “The first year there were just a handful of faith based groups involved, but within just a few years the initiative was in all fifty states because it is an easy idea that can be used in churches, schools, corporations and civic groups to help local food charities do their work better so no one goes without a bowl of soup to eat.”

With such a spread out operation and most of the funding staying at the local food charities, it was sometimes difficult to maintain funding for Tackle Hunger. In the future, Tackle Hunger plans to target smaller communities to help grow their organization.

“We plan to do more programming specifically to our core constituents — food charities, especially small food charities, who are trying to find the best resources and learn skills to maintain their programs,” Reese said. “We can offer those services and plan to start doing that along with maintaining our signature programs like Souper Bowl of Caring and the Tackle Hunger Map.”

Both Lawrence and Aguilar noted that with more advance notice next year, the food drive could be run more effectively. Lawrence said she “could have done a lot more” if she had more time.

“I would say maybe we could get more participation in future years, but I did get the email late,” Aguilar said. “But as soon as we got it, we did get it out, but maybe we’ll have better marketing next year before the Super Bowl. But even with those five classrooms, that’s a good amount of items that we will be getting, at least for our food pantry.”

But despite challenges with timing and outreach, the food drive remained rooted in a shared mission of giving back and supporting those in need.

“The motto of our congregation is ‘Be a Blessing,’” Tan said. “We believe what Scripture teaches: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Donating food and winter clothing is a simple yet tangible way for us to practice and live out our faith. It has been a blessing for our church to partner with the Social Worker’s Office at Bellaire High School, and we are grateful for the opportunity to serve our community together.”