Hundreds bowled over for soup, charity opportunity

From the ground floor entrance to the second floor of the Bloomington Convention Center, hundreds of guests waited in line to lay their hands on handmade bowls and fill them with soup.\nSunday evening’s fund-raising event, the 14th Soup Bowl Benefit, was a celebration of song, dance and soup. Sponsored by the Hoosier Hills Food Bank, the event helped raise money for the food bank and awareness about local hunger.\nNearly 30 restaurants and six bakeries contributed food, while local potters provided 600 soups bowls. Musical performances by Zimbabwean performer Sheasby Matiure and The Multinhimira Ensemble of IU, guitarist Steve Sobiech and local a cappella ensemble Kaia entertained the guests.\nRobert Meitus, a founder of the event, said the Soup Bowl Benefit has become something of tradition in Bloomington.\n“The Soup Bowl has become a special Bloomington event,” he said. “It’s always so hard to pick a bunch of bowls this time of year.”\nBeverly Calender-Anderson, who said she has been attending the Soup Bowl for seven or eight years, said the event was larger now than it had been originally.\n“There are just so many more people participating,” she said. “A lot more artists participating, a lot more potters participating.”\nKaren Green Stone, who has been volunteering since the inauguration of the Soup Bowl Benefit, said preparation for the event was swift.\n“We just had one meeting, and that was it when it came to organizing this year’s benefit, because all of us are so familiar with the process,” she said.\nMore than 600 people turned up to support the event, and $70,000 total was raised, Meitus said.\nHe said attendees raised $15,000 to $20,000 and the rest came from corporate sponsors.” \nIn his speech to guests, Julio Alonso, executive director of the Hoosier Hills Food Bank, delivered a sobering message about hunger, which he said is still a growing problem. \n“The face of hunger is changing,” Alonso said. “More and more of the people are accessing emergency foods because they lost their jobs or are facing illness.”