ST. LOUIS, Feb. 10, 2011 — If chicken soup is good for the soul, then more than half a million souls across the country will be glad because the National Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) is receiving a donation of 11,592 cases of Hearty Dry Chicken Noodle Soup, courtesy of Bear Creek Country Kitchens, a leading manufacturer of hearty dry soup mixes and other products.
With a retail value of approximately $320,000, the donation translates into some 560,000 individual servings of soup and will be distributed to several of the Society's locations around the country, including those with food pantries and dining halls that serve the homeless and those in need.
"We're pleased to be able to continue our partnership with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul," said Walter McKenna, corporate controller of Bear Creek Country Kitchens, a division of Specialty Brands of America, Inc. "We understand that a lot of people are struggling to feed themselves and their families, so we hope this will help to alleviate some of that need."
"We appreciate Bear Creek Country Kitchens' generosity and the timing of the company's donation," said Joe Flannigan, SVdP's national president. "The demand for food and other services that we provide to the needy and those living in poverty has skyrocketed in the past year, so this donation will provide critical help for the people we serve at a time when they need it most."
Bear Creek Country Kitchen in 2006 made another major donation to the National Council of SVdP with "HOPE" ("Help Our People Eat"), a specially equipped 42-foot-long mobile kitchen. With a full stainless steel kitchen complete with grill, soup preparation stations, sinks, washers, and food-service windows, HOPE can reach any destination in the continental United States and feed 10,000 people per day. The vehicle also can operate on its own generator and carries a full complement of mass-care feeding needs: water, juice, sandwiches, soup, coffee, etc.
One of the oldest charitable organizations in the world, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (http://www.svdpusa.org) is a Catholic lay organization of more than 690,000 men and women throughout the world who voluntarily join together to grow spiritually and offer person-to-person service to the needy and suffering in 142 countries on five continents. With the U.S. headquarters in St. Louis, Mo., membership in the United States totals more than 146,000 in 4,600 communities. Programs include home visits, housing assistance, disaster relief, job training and placement, food pantries, dining halls, clothing, transportation and utility costs, care for the elderly and medicine. SVdP serves more than 14 million people in need each year, performs more than 644,000 visits to people in their homes, and delivers more than 7 million service hours to those in need.
# # #