Calgary soup charity full to brim with volunteers

Soup Sisters holds events where friends and colleagues get together to make soup for emergency shelters, but the charity has become so popular that it's not accepting new volunteers until next year.

Calgary's Sharon Hapton, who founded Soup Sisters and Broth Brothers, thinks the key to the charity's success across the country is that it's a simple win-win formula.

"It's a win for people who are coming as participants to make soup because they enjoy a fantastic night of kitchen camaraderie — the best type that there is," she said.

"And then it's a win for the recipient. They get to know somebody in their community made soup that went to them and we call it a 'hug in a bowl.'"

During a Soup Sisters event, participants meet to drink a little wine and make a lot of soup — 800 bowls a month for women, children and youth in Calgary emergency shelters.

"We hand write the labels on all of our soups and there's messages that go to the women and children, and one thing that I just heard recently that a young girl said to her mom, she said, 'Mommy look this soup was made with love.'"

All Soup Sisters events are booked solid for the next year. There is a wait list, but it already has 100 people on it.

It's the perfect recipe, says Andrea McManus.

"The popularity of Soup Sisters is beyond anything I've ever seen," said McManus, who been working with non-profit organizations for decades.

She thinks the idea is a winner because the volunteers do it all in one night.

"Having full-time volunteers in charities is long gone," said McManus. "People just don't have that much time."