The Soup Ladies

The Soup Ladies of Maple Valley: Nourishment from the Heart
By DeAnn Rossetti

For Ginger Passarelli, it was a natural extension of what she’d been doing with her soup lunches at Real Life Church for the past 7 years. Feeding people is her life’s work.

For Diane Tate, it was finding that her purpose in life was to feed people while hearing their stories and enjoying their fellowship.

For Laura Russell, it was the chance to give something back in a hands-on manner, and helping the public see their donations at work.

That’s what lead these three wives and mothers, collectively know as The Soup Ladies of Maple Valley, to grab their stockpots and their gear and hightail it down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to feed rescue workers and homeless residents devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

From September 27 through October 5, the Soup Ladies ladled out hundreds of gallons of their beef stroganoff soup, beef enchilada soup and white chicken chili to roughly a thousand people a day. Using supplies they’d brought with them and whatever donated food was at hand, the Soup Ladies managed to serve breakfast, lunch and supper from 6 am to 9 p.m. every day. They discovered, on arrival, that things in Baton Rouge were already well in hand, and that their soup and caring attitude was needed in a town called Pass Christian, three hours south in Mississippi.

“It was no accident that we were sent there,” said Passarelli. “The morning after we arrived, the man who was running the mobile kitchen went into the hospital, and we had to get the kitchen organized, up and running before breakfast.”

Diane and Ginger were busy getting the food together, but paused long enough to watch Laura, a new recruit, working through what they considered a “trial by fire” for christening a new soup lady.

“Things were flying everywhere,” said Diane. “We stood back and watched Laura hauling things here, telling people to put things back over there, it was like a symphony, and through it all, she was so kind she brought people a lot of joy.”

“I have them fooled into thinking it was hard work,” laughed Laura. “The truth is, I don’t really know how to cook!”

“But you know how to boss people around and get things done, which is essential to being a soup lady,” adds Ginger, with a knowing smile.

Ginger Passarelli founded the Soup Ladies of Maple Valley after the windstorm of December 4, 2003, when a group of workers from her Real Life Church and a group from the New Community Church were slated for several days of community clean up.

“The two pastors asked if I’d feed workers like I’d been feeding people for breakfast and lunch at my church,” said Ginger. “We made 70 gallons of soup, had bread and ice cream, and it was such fun, I said to Diane that we could take this show on the road and do big things…we could become Maple Valley’s soup ladies.”

Diane, who attends New Community Church, said she felt she wouldn’t be helpful in clearing debris or fixing yards or homes, so when she was given Ginger’s phone number, she jumped at the chance to help using skills she did have.

“I showed up and started crying, seeing how she was feeding the volunteers and how everything was put together, because I knew this was something I could do,” said Diane. “I had been looking for my purpose in life, and when I saw the smiles on workers faces and them enjoying that meal, it all fell into place for me.”

When New Life Church asked for volunteers to help relief workers after Hurricane Katrina, Ginger asked Diane to gather anyone else who might want to go and meet her at the airport. Diane immediately thought of her fellow New Community Church committee member, Laura, and asked her along on the mission.

“I wanted to do something for the hurricane victims that was more tangible and hands-on than sending money, which we’d already done,” said Laura. “I knew people wanted to see their donations at work, and my heart was ready for something big. So when Diane called, I said ‘I’ll even drive!’”

The Soup Ladies were less astonished by the havoc wrought by the hurricane than by the generosity of the Pass Christian denizens. “One guy was walking around the food tent saying ‘I have unlimited minutes on my cell phone, and you can make a call anywhere you want,’ to people eating dinner, and you could tell it was all he had to offer, but he was going to give what little he had,” said Ginger. “Everyone wanted to give something back to us, whether it was construction workers putting running water in the kitchen or people bringing in extra meat. I said once that I’d kill for a Diet Coke and this gal who had asked if she could help us brought me a whole six-pack!”

“What’s really cool is that people have continued to give refrigerators, generators, all kinds of things to the site, and now it’s huge,” said Diane. “We had lots of people telling us that they had neighbors or people they hardly knew living with them because the (Government) was closing the shelters and there were so many left homeless.”

“I expected angry, grieving people,” said Laura. “Though people were mourning the loss of friends, relatives and homes, they were always sweet to us, saying thank you, and intent on giving back, bringing us blankets and sweats to keep us warm at night and helping others any way they could.”

Their last night in Pass Christian, The Soup Ladies made Caesar salad and peach cobbler to go with their popular beef stroganoff soup, and some of those partaking of the feast were moved to tears by the meal. For some of the hurricane survivors, it was the first three-course meal and warm dessert they’d had since the storm washed away their homes.

“People thankful and considerate because they were grateful to be alive,” said Laura. “They’d seen so many neighbors, relatives and friends not make it. They knew we’d come a long way to be help them, and it could have ended there, but they wanted us to know they were grateful for our care of them.”

The Soup Ladies will be returning to Pass Christian for Thanksgiving week, and have already shipped ahead boxes of holiday decorations, non-perishable food and clothing for those in need. Though all three have busy lives here—Ginger owns Mama Passarelli’s Dinner House, Laura and Diane are stay-at-home moms and heavily involved in community and church outreach activities—they have already made overtures to the local police and fire departments to let them know they can have a mobile kitchen up and running in 6 hours or less, in case of local disaster.

“We were trained there for a purpose,” said Ginger. “We came back more determined than ever to do something about disaster preparedness for the West Coast.”
They’ve opened up a web site, www.thesoupladiesofmaplevalley.com, where they plan on serving up recipes for their famed soups, sending out a call for more “soup mamas” to start serving soup in their own churches or communities, and to solicit funds to purchase equipment for their disaster relief emergency mobile soup kitchen.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we inspired soup ladies all over the world?” mused Ginger. “Making soup is just a vehicle to get people to sit down and talk, and when people talk, they build families, and families build communities, and strong communities make a strong nation.”