Ever heard of the Stone Soup story where hungry strangers persuade townspeople to contribute ingredients to their pot of soup?

The United Way Women’s Leadership Council turned that concept into a family volunteer project, and I was happy to bring my niece and nephew along.

On Saturday, February 9,  we joined dozens of volunteers at the Salvation Army in Norfolk to assemble casseroles with the ingredients we bought.

In addition to the Salvation Army- volunteers distributed the meals to Samaritan House, Seton Youth Shelters, HER Shelter, the YWCA, Portsmouth Area Resources Coalition, the Judeo Christian Outreach Center, and  Western Tidewater Free Clinic.

The United Way is always looking for volunteers and accepting donations. What a great way to help the less fortunate and meet great people while giving back to the community.

Here’s a note from one of the recipient groups:

“The feed back was positive with smiling faces and appreciation from each household (and PARC Staff) as I entered the Shelter on Saturday. Since there were more available than we had anticipated, 3 of our families in our transitional housing program benefited…much to their delight…”
-Annie White-Guertin, Executive Director, PARC

This is my second year doing the Stone Soup project and I hope to continue to help out in the future.

Tags: casserole recipes, family, nicole livas, parc, Salvation Army, shelters, stone soup, united way, volunteers, women's leadership council, youth