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A small crew of about six adults and a few children were working on making the final touches to their set up for the Soup for Souls annual toy drive when the winds kicked in and the temperature began to drop rapidly. While the wind and cold weather may have stopped some families from making the trip to the host house near Glidden Baptist Church, Edward Pavlicek and the rest of the donors and volunteers fought through the elements to hand out and deliver soup and presents to the families in Columbus.
The Soup for Souls event has already developed a strong history despite being a relatively young tradition in Columbus. Started by John Trimmer in 2017, Soup for Souls became a bimonthly celebration of goodwi ll. On the first and third Thursdays of each month, the organizers cook a sizable pot of soup and fill scores of containers with the freshly made soup. They gave no qualifiers; anyone could come and enjoy a free bowl of soup and return some to their families. There are some things that have changed since Pavlicek took the helm in 2019. The main change is the addition of sponsors like Brookshire Brothers who gave the organizers discounts on soup supplies throughout the year, but also provided all the gift bags for the toys and all the soup ingredients for this year’s Christmas soup day. However, there are just as many if not more factors that have stayed the same over time, including the spirit of giving that the event was founded upon. Jessica Ramirez and her family have been able to see the growth and progression of the event from its earliest moments as Ramirez was one of the original volunteers and is still one of the event’s main organizers.
Ramirez plays a crucial role in the yearly toy drive that is included in the final soup day of the year around Christmas. Ramirez starts her work as early as October. As families come to collect the free soup containers, Ramirez informs them of the toy drive and compiles a list of families and children who would like to receive gifts and toys at the end of the year. She works with the parents to come up with good gift ideas for each child, and she also personally shops for the gifts when December comes around. As a current worker for Census family services, Ramirez understands the importance of providing for families that may be struggling during the unprecedented times the world has faced since the event’s first toy drive.
“I like to help the community as much as I can,” Ramirez said, “I get my kids involved. I’m teaching them how to help others.”
With the toys and gifts successfully handled by Ramirez, lead organizer Pavlicek is able to spend his focus on a big batch of his highly reviewed soup, the year-round main attraction. When December and the toy drive arrive, he doubles his recipe to accommodate for the expected increase of participation at the end of the year. The second batch was necessary this year as they have continued to grow in attendance each year, jumping up from around 230 toys last year to about 260 toys this year. Pavlicek says he is expecting the number to “plateau” a bit, but those numbers do not even include the families who come by just for soup and do not pick up toys as well.
The numbers jump even more when the deliveries are considered as well. This year, as families battled extremely cold weather, the organizers made more deliveries than ever as they spread to different areas around town to hand out soup to those who could not make the trip to the physical location.
While the Soup for Souls tradition will pick things right back up where they left off on the first Thursday of the new year, they will be able to reflect on another successful event to serve their community.
