West U Elementary School PTO

WHAT IS SOUPER BOWL OF CARING (SBOC)?

The Souper Bowl of Caring is a school-wide non-perishable food donation drive that is held the first week of February, from 2/3/25 thru 2/7/25. 

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Many children in HISD schools only eat when they are at school. Grocery prices and the cost of living has gone WAY up and for many families it is a choice between filling their children’s bellies or paying utilities and rent.  Each year our school comes together to make a huge impact on the HISD Food Pantries.  Students bring canned and packaged food donations to help stock 75 food pantries with nonperishable food items for hungry HISD students and families. Last year we donated OVER 100,000 ITEMS of food! Donations from WUES helped stock those 75 food pantries for 8 month’s worth of emergency food. Let’s make it a year’s worth this time. 

 

HOW WILL WE DO THIS?

-  Like last year, we will be asking for single-serve or family-size donations.  The donated items will be sorted at an HISD facility and given to children to take home in their backpacks.  We are prioritizing QUANTITY over weight or size.  

-  Any and all donations are appreciated.  

-  Every student will receive a grocery bag the week of 1/27/25.  Students can fill the grocery bag with items from their pantry or pick up more at the grocery store.  And families should feel free to fill additional bags, boxes, or whatever you want to bring your donations in. 

-  Each class will be assigned a location (University or Goode Street) where they’ll drop-off donations daily.
 

HOW CAN YOU HELP? 

It takes the whole team to pull off this massive effort. 

 

Sign up here to tally and box donated items, play jenga with the loaded boxes as a heavy lifting volunteer, or sweep the halls for classroom donations.  

 

NOTE: THIS YEAR WE ARE OFFERING BONUS POINTS FOR EACH VOLUNTEER SIGN UP. YOU MUST CHECK IN AT EITHER THE GOODE STREET OR UNIVERSITY SET UPS TO GET YOUR CREDIT.

 

WHAT ABOUT COMPETITION?

Duh… of course we will continue our most exciting intra-school competition!  More details will follow in the coming weeks, but here’s the run-down… 

-  We award points for every item donated; there is a daily bonus item which will earn DOUBLE points.  

-  Teachers will get tally sheets in their boxes the week of 1/27 (one specific to each day M-F).  The parent volunteer will tally up the day’s donations and take the tally sheet with the items to the donation location.

-  We will announce the winners of the grade-level (one winner each from K through 5th) and school-wide competitions (top 3 in the whole school) on February 10th during a school-wide celebration.  

-  Please also remind your classes that: while the competition aspect is fun, we want the REAL winners to be the kids and families that are served by HISD’s Food Bank.  We also want our kids to enjoy serving others and practice all of those social-emotional skills that are built through service learning.