Community Wins In 2011 Soup Bowl

Greensboro Urban Ministry
before the Soup Bowl donations

On Sept. 3 the Guilford Quakers faced off against the Greensboro Pride in the 15th Annual Gate City Soup Bowl. The game was just a game with Guilford winning, 27-7, but the service done for the Greensboro Urban Ministry (GUM) and the hungry in Greensboro was truly amazing.

Guilford students collected 6,398 cans, and Greensboro and Guilford combined to bring in 9,774 items. The Quakers’ football team rose up and bought 1,100 cans, an average of over 13 cans per athlete.

“The coaches emphasized us bringing in cans all preseason,” said redshirt junior Ben King. “They even took away the ticket list and told us to tell our family members to bring cans.”

This huge amount of canned goods will help feed many families as the shelves of the GUM were almost empty prior to the game.

Poorly stocked shelves at the GUM

“Summer time is a bad time for us,” said Marcus Miller, who deals with food donations for the GUM.

“We’ve had people come in here recently who never thought they would be in here,” said Miller. He also said the GUM has doubled its output need, the amount of food it must provide, over the past few months due to the struggling economy.

“From September to December is when we do the best,” he said. The holidays bring the biggest donations.

The donations gathered at the Soup Bowl will go a long way towards filling the empty shelves of the GUM.

A portion of the donations at the Soup Bowl

Hundreds of people in need, especially those in the GUM’s emergency assistance program, will have food for a few days from the cans gained through the Soup Bowl, and the GUM coffers will be replenished until the holidays come again and people find it in their hearts to give to this worthy cause.



Story and photos by Will Cloyd  '12