Two local arts and culture organizations will receive a generous grant on July 20, courtesy of Columbus SOUP. The philanthropic group has announced its choices for the five candidate organizations to be voted on by attendees at SOUP’s quarterly dinner event, to be held at the Columbus College of Art and Design.
The five candidates are the Weinland Park Freedom Mural, which will help young people understand the history and future of community change; One Wild Day, which will allow artists and creative people to use space at Wild Goose Creative for one day free of charge during the month of January, 2015; The Transit Arts Program at Green Lawn Abbey, which aims to teach young people about architecture and encourage them toward careers in design; the UNCHAINED Human Trafficking Awareness Fashion Show, which hopes to encourage abolitionists in the fight against human trafficking; and the Urban Strings Columbus Youth Orchestra, which provides bi-weekly music lessons to local students.
Columbus SOUP started in 2013 with the goal of organizing quarterly crowd funding events to support local projects that seek to benefit the community. Attendees to SOUP’s quarterly dinners, hosted at different locations each time, pay a $7 minimum and vote on which of the five candidate organizations will receive the collected money. In addition, money from a raffle sponsored by local businesses is given to the second place project.
“The number one reason why people attend SOUP is to find out about these grassroots projects going on in Columbus,” said Liz Martin, SOUP’s executive director.
Columbus is not the only city with a SOUP, nor was it the first. Martin and the other Columbus SOUP organizers were originally inspired by the efforts of Detroit SOUP. The executive director of the Detroit organization even gave pointers on how to get SOUP started in Columbus. Although there are SOUPs all over the world, each is run separately and differently from one another.
“Ours runs a lot differently from theirs,” said Martin, referring to Detroit SOUP. “Ours is more structured, theirs is more free-form.”
Columbus SOUP has seen attendance at its events steadily rising, which prompted organizers to start requesting RSVPs from attendees to make sure they could accommodate the right number of people. Another change they have made since SOUP’s inception has been to start using themes for each event. That way every candidate project is from a similar area, creating a more level playing field among candidates.
Since its first event last June, SOUP has given approximately $8,000 to grassroots projects in Columbus, such as Neighborhood Services Inc., Stop the Violence Summer Jam, and Girls Heart Reading Ohio. Piada, ZenCha Tea Salon, Passport Café and Jeni’s Ice Cream will sponsor this quarter’s event at the CCAD Mind Market, with the second place raffle sponsored by Rose DeVore Photography, Poor Sparrow, Art.com and Little Star Cupcakes & Scones.
Anyone interested in attending the July 20 dinner can RSVP at www.columbussoup.org.
Photos by Rose DeVore — Courtesy Columbus SOUP.