Sistrunk soup & sharing
Event blends business pitches, food and fun.
FORT LAUDERDALE — Soup is helping to revive Fort Lauderdale’s historic Sistrunk neighborhood.
Community members gather once a month at an event where they eat soup, watch artistic presentations and hear ideas for new businesses.
The event, begun in 2015, is called Sistrunk SOUP. It was modeled after the original Detroit SOUP, which began as a way for people to gather around food to empower the community in a crumbling city.
Sistrunk SOUP now is one of 63 around the country. The event is free, but anyone who donates a suggested $5 or minimum of 25 cents gets one vote on business ideas that will get a share of the pot of money collected that night.
“It’s Shark Tank meets American Idol,” said Scott Strawbridge, director of development and facilities for the Fort Lauderdale housing authority.
“Many feel their voices have been lost and don’t feel validated,” Strawbridge said. “This is a way to help the community fulfill one of the most fundamental human needs: to be heard and understood.”
The SOUP happens before the “Megaphone,” a retired cargo container that opens into a pop-up stage where people perform and share their business proposals.
The Megaphone, painted with a pop art portrait of Louis Armstrong, was given to the community by a group of Florida Atlantic University students. It sits at 13th Terrace and Eighth Street in Broward County’s poorest ZIP code. The container was part of a project that aimed to make use of empty lots and objects in the community.
“It has become our outdoor living room,” said Marie Huntley, who is running for city
commissioner and is the program director of the Sistrunk SOUP.
The soup is provided by Chef Chad Cherry, founder of Refresh Live Foundation, which tries to make organic, local and healthy food accessible to underserved communities. Every month he brings a unique creation, one of his most popular being his Caribbean chicken soup.
“Food is a uniter,” Cherry said. “We can have many differences, but we can come together around the table, around a meal, and we can begin to bridge gaps and create change.”
Projects that have been funded by the SOUP include AphroDust, a book store focusing on African-American literature; Girls Make Beats, an organization that introduces girls to music production; and Graffitize Not Vandalize, a project that encouraged youth to express themselves by painting artistic and collaborative murals.
Each SOUP raises a couple of hundred dollars, but every year organizers prepare for the Mega SOUP, which brings hundreds of people to see the top performances and business presentations, which compete for $2,500.
Last year’s big winner was Girls Call the Shots, a four-week program that taught girls how to create a film, from writing a script to production.
This year’s Mega SOUP will be Sept. 16. August’s monthly event, scheduled for today, will be a back-to-school SOUP, where 300 book bags will be distributed.
“Sistrunk is ready for this,” Cherry said. “If you go by Sistrunk there is literally change in the air. People are hungry, and the SOUP is a perfect example of people not wanting anything given to them, but them wanting for work for it themselves.”