Feed ’em Soup to host spaghetti fundraiser

By Lupe Lopez

Feed ’em Soup will host its second all-you-can-eat spaghetti fundraiser Friday at its headquarters, 122 S. First St. on Friday.

Feed ’em Soup is a privately funded community project. Its mission is to empower the community by providing meals to DeKalb residents once a week.

“This is a great event to raise funds in order to continue feeding the citizens of DeKalb,” said executive director Derek Gibbs.

Tickets will be sold in advance or at the door for $10 each. There will be two seatings. Lunch will take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and dinner will be held from 4:30 to 8 p.m. Children under 5 years old eat for free.

The chef will prepare traditional spaghetti with vegetarian friendly sauce and meatballs to add.

Feed ’em Soup relies volunteers’ help to serve meals.

“The reason we do this event is to fundraise to have our meals on Wednesdays,” said board member Jeff Hess. “We feed 200 to 250 people a week.”

Feed ’em Soup provides a different style of service in comparison to other soup kitchens.

“It’s restaurant style, not the average soup kitchen,” Gibbs said. “We show people that this is exactly how we serve on Wednesdays. The only difference is the $10 donation.”

Feed ’em Soup expects to increase its donations at this year’s event with the help of attendees.

“Last year we sold 350 tickets,” Gibbs said. “This year we’re hoping for 400.”

The all-you-can-eat meals are not the only thing Feed ’em Soup provides the community with. It has a clothing closet, shuttle service and children’s program.

“My favorite part about the event is that I get to see my friends and family all come together to help raise funds for a great cause,” said board member Josh Akers.

With limited resources, Feed ’em Soup volunteers manage to keep positive attitudes while helping the community with their services.

“There are new learning experiences every year,” Akers said. “I think with our larger goals and tough budget for 2013, we will see many great things happening within Feed ’em soup. Therefore, this year is going to be challenging, which makes it already better than last year.”