Food to the People

Written by John Hahn

In fiscal year 2024, La Soupe is on track to produce more than 1.1 million servings for the Cincinnati community and beyond. Whether it’s cutting produce, making sandwiches, or driving donations to La Soupe’s 150 share partners, volunteers enable La Soupe to make the impossible possible.

la soupe volunteers prep rescued vegetables

With April being National Volunteer Month, La Soupe organized Ladles Not Landfills, a free family-friendly event with a special VIP hour to celebrate our volunteers. Ladles Not Landfills was held April 14th at Madtree Brewing and gave a glimpse into what La Soupe is all about–providing nourishing food to those without proper food access. With Earth Day the following week, the event celebrated how organizations can provide necessities while also being earth-conscious.

La Soupe loves enabling different opportunities for volunteers who want to give their time and talent to our mission. In effort to expand volunteer opportunities, La Soupe Manager of Volunteer Engagement, Ali Ulanski, met with Food Access Coordinator at the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, Gary Dangel.

In 2014, Dangel was hired by the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation following the closing of Kroger’s Walnut Hills location. 

We were immediately a food desert. There’s a fairly high rate of poverty in the neighborhood and a pretty high rate of seniors here. Physical mobility is an issue. A lot of folks don’t have vehicles, so they can’t just hop in their car and go to Corryville. It’s get on the bus and go, and it’s not convenient. It was required for people to go to where the food was. The goal was to bring food to people. (Dangel)

As a part of his job as Food Access Coordinator, Dangel also took over eight gardens in Walnut Hills that had not been maintained. In their place he founded a loosely organized group of gardeners called Grow Six. Together they revitalized the gardens, growing for seven months each year providing free, nourishing food to the Walnut Hills community. In Dangel’s agreement with La Soupe, La Soupe volunteers can now help provide nourishing food for Walnut Hills through Grow Six.

In addition to growing food and directly donating it to the Walnut Hills community, Grow Six also donates produce to La Soupe to be transformed into delicious meals and soups.

The work that we were doing seven years ago, when you guys moved here, it kicked it up several notches because you have the supply, you have the staff, you have the technical expertise to convert the food, and you have the network. All of those pieces translate into what we do at Friday Food and Fun. I don’t know of any other place that’s doing that in the city at that scale. (Dangel)

In terms of what types of produce Grow Six provides to Walnut Hills and La Soupe, it is a democratic process. While formal surveys are not usually taken, Grow Six volunteers might ask someone walking by what types of greens, tomatoes, or peppers they would be interested in cooking and eating. Through its school programs, Grow Six asks what students do and do not like. Grow Six also works with UC Health patients who may have suffered a heart attack or stroke, needed a knee-replacement, or are pre-diabetic, the same questions. The hope is that asking the community what it likes will not only ensure Grow Six’s harvest is fully utilized, but also encourage healthy eating habits.

Almost all of the gardens are free harvests. Six out of eight don’t have fences around them. The idea is that nobody goes hungry. The food is easily accessible any time of the day, any day of the week. This time of year, we’re starting seedlings, putting some greens in the ground. I very much want to know what people like to eat and what they want us to grow because if I’m growing kale and somebody wants mustard greens, then that’s not a good thing. (Dangel)

Along with community engagement, Dangel also asks La Soupe chefs what ingredients they might want to cook with. At La Soupe, the chefs are used to making the best product with what they have. But, one of the most common answers Dangel has received is culinary herbs such as basil or thyme. The best part about Grow Six’s produce is the gardens close proximity to La Soupe. The produce is seasonally fresh, with all the nutrients still intact.

Another benefit of the Grow Six gardens is becoming a more close-knit community. Prior to working at the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, Dangel owned his own graphic design business in Walnut Hills. He admitted that he was not really involved with the community before becoming Food Access Coordinator. Similarly, he found that many of Grow Six’s gardeners did not know each other despite living in the same neighborhood or even the same building.

You get out in the garden and start discussing what food you want to grow and how you’re going to cook it. People tell stories about their parents and grandparents and what kind of food they made. It heightens the fabric of the community. The gardens are a meeting place where it’s very equal, and everybody’s out there with soil under their fingernails growing food. (Dangel)

The relationships developed when doing something that is not only good for yourself, but also good for the people around you, are beacons for change. You can help create the world as you want it to be built. Given his position with the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, Dangel is an accurate information source for community members regarding changes to the neighborhood.

One change to the community and our planet that La Soupe and Grow Six both focus heavily on is sustainability. La Soupe takes unwanted food that might otherwise be thrown away and turns it into delicious and nutritious meals and soups. While Grow Six’s gardens are not certified organic, they follow the same rules. This means no fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides are sprayed on its plants.

La Soupe Volunteer Mike adds compost to the soil

Grow Six also utilizes rainwater as its primary water source. Some gardens might collect more water than others and during drought this necessitates hauling water to different locations. Composting is also a huge part of creating sustainability. Grow Six rescues food waste from commissaries, kitchens, residences, and schools. It also receives wood chips, horse manure, and coffee grounds in order to replenish its soil.

The agricultural soil in this country is tapped out, not many nutrients left. Farmers just pump fertilizer on top of it to get the plants to grow. They say there’s maybe 25 or 30 years of harvest left unless we do something different. Doing something different means replenishing the soil. (Dangel)

Through his work with the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation and Grow Six, Dangel has collaborated with La Soupe, Black Power Initiative, and Healthy Harvest Mobile Market, to create change. When communities and organizations work together, issues such as food insecurity and sustainability can be addressed, making the impossible possible.