PITCHING OUTSIDE THE LOGGERS BASEBALL FIELD...

I hate to admit that it's been way too long since we've been able to attend La Crosse Soup. In fact it outgrew its initial out of doors meeting place and today we met at a new locale, a huge pavillion next to the Black River with at least 450 community members in attendance. 

Folks of all ages filled the picnic tables and some folks even brought their own seating. Tonight the $5 donation for soup was the same as was its ticket to vote for the day's community project pitches but the twist was three local food trucks donated 3 different yummy soups besides a percentage of their own individual menu sales. Both Turtle Stack Brewery beer sale proceeds by Beer for Bike Brigade and desserts by a local elementary school were also donated.  

Cilantro Lime Taco Bisque

Smoked Chicken Noodle

The yummy soups included Apothik's vegan and gluten free Sweet Potato Curry Bisque garnished with cilantro,  

Cloudy's -a Cilantro Lime Taco Bisque and Sweet Lou's  Smoked Chicken Noodle.

Pitch #1 was for Global Initiatives with cultural awareness being the goal by hosting community cultural events. Monies are needed for event space, advertising, etc. In the past University foreign exchange students and community members  help share their cultures with displays, music, handicrafts, dance, storytelling in addition to food sampling.

Pitch #2 was for additional funding for the Franciscan Sisters $8 Hygiene bags which contain products like shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, etc individualized for women, men/children. The common good besides providing shelter, clothing and food is also allowing individuals to feel good about themselves by being clean.

Pitch # 3 was for SURJ which organizes white people for racial justice through community mobilization and education. After starting a book club and reading the book The New Jim Crow on incarceration, SURJ formed the SURJ Barrier Busters project  'to help people of color who have been incarcerated transition to educational and vocational opportunities' assisting Project Proven with providing funds for transportation, child care, class supplies, job clothes etc...

The event also included 3 surprises. Raffle prizes were awarded and we won a $100 value of 10 classes of indoor bike riding. Holy moly! 

After the presentations everybody dropped their Soup ticket for their favorite pitch into a designated bag. While the votes were being counted there was another surprise with a special announcement by two representatives from the La Crosse Community Foundation which awards grants. The Foundation is so impressed with La Crosse Soup's work and the 3 pitches that they would give $1000 to the pitch runner up. What a terrific gesture! 

Before announcing the people's choice and the runner up I also have to share another very special surprise moment to show how La Crosse Soup affects our community. Just because a pitch doesn't win doesn't mean it is forgotten  as Boy Scout Sam can attest. Sam shared with the crowd a story about his Mom showing him a video she had taken of a past La Crosse Soup pitch about the Coulee Council on Addiction needs for Recreational Activities equipment. It hadn't won that night but it touched Sam so much that he decided to raise funds for this endeavor for his Eagle Scout project. He sent out request letters for both monetary and item donations to local businesses. He even received monies from his grandfather's Rotary group. Thanks to Sam some of our community members lives are better including recreational items such as fishing poles and filled tackle boxes. Heart touching, right?

OK, I know you are waiting to know the People's Choice pitch.

Drum roll please....

SURJ came in first winning $3593 from the evening's donations and the Hygiene Bags coming in second for that $1000 donation. 

The truth is and I think you'd agree we are all winners with La Crosse Soup in our community. At a time when funding cuts abound we all need to be a little kinder, you too could have the same crowdfunding community program in your city/town!

* BTW We passed our raffle winning on to a young mother with 3 teen boys who was ecstatic to say the least to have those bike classes!

SOUPER SEPTEMBER in UPTOWNE

The clouds just couldn't decide what they wanted to do today and by 5pm crowd funding La Crosse Soup organizers threw in the towel and just said we are going to be outside so bring your bowl, spoon, chair and umbrella as we would meet in front of the rootdown yoga studio and its future cafe, Uptowne Cafe.

The new to be Caledonia Street restauranteur, Adrian Lipscombe,  has moved here with her family from Austin and that's Texas, not Minnesota, after being introduced to La Crosse at last year's nationwide Soup Summit. Our city must have made some kind of impression on her to move to the cold lands... 

(L) Adrian of Uptowne Cafe 

Fortunately, some 200 folks were in attendance in spite of the weather. Adrian graciously was our soup cook for the evening for the unexpected larger crowd and unfortunately, the yummy Minestrone ran out.  Folks understood... 


A big thanks to both Adrian for cooking and to Fayze's restaurant for the bread. 

So, let me tell you about the evening's 4 pitches :
First up: Laquita Becker who works with at risk youth for the Y's Boys and Girls Club wanted help with her AWSM project of providing funds for attendance at retreats/conferences to work on positive character and leadership. The group started this past summer. 

2) Jacob Seamus proposed Cultural Celebration Weekends such as the one I described in yesterday's blog entry. To get us out during the dark days of winter to foster ethnic cultural fairs with trad'l food, dance, art activities, to expand global views for the entire family.

3) Three High School youth dressed in ADOPT black T's pitched raising monies for scholarships for Therapy Dog training for dogs to go to hospitals, senior facilities, schools etc. to help provide companionship to those in need and to ease stress. 

And the last pitch was- 
:

4) Walk Your City which involved posting temporary signs promoting walking to public spots with the predicted TOA.  Each $20 sign would last approximately 3 years and could skirt city posting ordinances. The goal is health and to be more active by walking. 

All clever ideas indeed. Attendees can ask questions after each pitch too.

For those that remember all the $5 donation request for the Soup dinner goes to the pitch winner. The night's attendees were given their vote ticket after they contributed for their meal and then placed their ticket vote.

The night's winner was PITCH #1, the AWSM program now with more monies going to train future young community leaders with an extra $939. 

We were spared being rained on and were able to try out a new locale. Yet as in any gathering, some tweaking to be done... It's difficult to guess on attendance but always better to have too much food than too little, need for sound projection as not everybody with a good idea has a great speaking voice over traffic and children. Perhaps also suggesting folks to bring water when there is no beverage donor. And to realize once it gets dark (earlier at this time of the year), folks are ready to disperse rather than stay around to mingle... All fixable.  

Kudos to both organizers Josh (Coan?) now pitch organizer (l) and La Crosse Soup's Andrew Londre (r) for another evening to make our community better. Go to La Crosse Soup's FB page for upcoming events and with any pitch ideas.

To Uptowne, best wishes in your continued growth and revitalization in the North end of La Crosse. 

CREATING CONNECTIONS, CREATING COMMUNITY

I was so bummed when I had to be out of town when La Crosse Soup hosted the 2016 Soup Summit. I did the very next best thing and shared my ticket with Natureman. 

Soup Summit 2016's goals were:
"*celebrate, explore, inspire, and improve La Crosse.
*celebrate and connect local innovators, fun-pushers,    and doers
*meet, inspire, and be inspired by some of the nation's top urban pioneers 
*train other communities on how to start a SOUP of their own
*set the stage for an even bigger year of SOUP in 2016
*and most importantly, a day to, have fun and make new friends
*an event for dreamers and doers only"

Unfortunately, Natureman could only attend the Saturday afternoon session called 'ideation.' But I have to admit he joined the right group. You may ask,"Why?" Well his group came up with the winning pitch of the brainstorming session to make La Crosse AWSM in 2016. Crowd funding in its purest form serves as 'seed money' for the idea's implementation.

What is it? A Souper Club. An offshoot of La Crosse Soup to continue community building on a smaller scale, creating connections with our neighbors at small (8-10 people) potluck gatherings of folks who don't know each other from our community.

So this past Thursday nine of us met to 'pot luck and plan' the  specifics of how the idea of Souper Club would be implemented including also the whens and with whom. 
The idea is to invite someone you don't know very well and then that person extends the invite to another who in turn invites another. If they are couples that already makes 10 which is ideal. Each attendee signs up to bring an item to share at the Souper Club gathering whether it be an entree, vegetable, dessert or beverage to feed 4/6 folks. The evening's host would fill in missing items if necessary, utilizing some of the project's "seed" money.

The goal is to create conversation and connections. Then, hopefully some of the attendees will also offer to host another Souper Club night the following month. You can imagine the domino effect... There was talk of larger park picnics, ice cream socials,etc... for which the seed money can be used for bringing neighbors together.

What can be better than breaking bread and meeting new people? I love win win propositions, don't you?

Kudos to the La Crosse Summit 2016 for sponsoring another way to build community!


Love this recent UpWorthy article :We Should Break Bread Together

LINKS to some PAST ENTRIES WITH LA CROSSE SOUP:

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

LA CROSSE SOUPERS DOING "GOOD""

Super SOUPERS: DOING GOOD

Remember how excited I was with my gorgeous soup bowl from the fundraising Soup Bowl night in Viroqua? 

the backpack strap knot that didn't hold

Well, that lovely bowl wasn't long for this world as this week it became a bunch of pottery shards as the small cloth backpack's strap I had slipped over my shoulder as I got out of the car gave and down fell the lime green back pack with the bowl onto the sidewalk. :( I do expect some empathy  (a couple AWS would be nice because I was headed to the August La Crosse Soup and now I didn't have a bowl.) I figured I could still make my $5 donation no matter what. 

Dianne 'does good.' 

When I arrived I found a spot for my blanket behind my knitting friend Dianne with whom I shared my soup bowl's demise. She offered me her bowl as she said it was a cream based soup night and she wouldn't need her bowl. Oh my, the soup gods were watching out/ La Crosse SOUP's motto of DO GOOD is already working its magic besides micro financing. Thanks Dianne. 
  

Update : Some 200 folks attended last month's soup soiree ($1600 collected) so an optimistic 300 tickets had been printed for August's La Crosse Soup and guess what?  300 wasn't enough. Actually, a very good problem to have with almost 60 more needed. If you multiply the $5 requested donation for a bowl of soup that's already at least $1800. 

The night's soup was a creamy 
potato leek soup donated by the The Mint, savory/sweet bread from Great Harvest Bread Co. , a pastry and from Lifelawn Gardens fresh radish sprouts  besides the proceeds from a keg of beer donated by local Pearl Street Brewery. 

After all the evening's proceeds were counted, a whopping $2280 would accompany the Giant Soup Spoon to the most popular pitch. 

As a refresher/in case you missed the July posting, four pitches are made to the gathered community and the attendees will make their entrance ticket/ballot of their choice for the micro financing. 

The night's four pitches included:

Y appeal

1. YMCA FOOD FOREST: An edible Forest : a year round garden planted street side starting this year in front of the YWCA. Monies would help with plantings and public workshops. Community passerbys could help themselves to the produce. The gals seated around me decided they liked would love to volunteer to help after seeing the organizer. He was very impassioned to educate the public re: growing their own food/ food for others  ... DOING GOOD.

Chris, one owner of the soap business

2. NOT YOUR MOTHER'S APRON SOAP: Two sisters who run a home grown soap business using less chemicals making their soaps to be more eco and hygienically friendly need some monies for an exhaust fan for their business. Their generosity included a small soap sample for the evening's attendees. We all were beneficiaries of this small business DOING GOOD.



3. URBAN AG GREENHOUSE: 

Casey donated radish sprouts for soup night too.

Local landscaper Casey of Lifelawn Gardens uses city residents' backyards gardens to grow produce. In exchange the homeowner receives a percentage of the produce, Casey then takes the remaining yield to area farmer markets, donating 10% of his earnings to community projects. He also vouched 10% of his remaining season's earnings to go to SOUP in addition to future transportation of his yield to be bicycle fueled to market. Monies needed for hoop greenhouses to start and keep plants in cooler weather. Win win business plan of :DOING GOOD.

Kate, UW-L prof volunteer at Franciscan Hospitality 

4. A SPECIAL WEDDING CEREMONY: Kate, a UW-L English  prof, volunteers at the city's new Franciscan Hospitality Center where homeless folks can get a how shower, wash clothes, have a place to take a nap, get a meal, etc... (BTW donated hygiene products always needed) One couple who live in tent city and have been plagued with health issues and financial complications are now getting married. Kate's appeal is for monies to throw them a wedding. The center will provide a wedding meal for community guests. Kate added extra monies would go back into La Crosse SOUP. During questioning time: someone asked if they needed someone to marry the couple. Well, no, there was no one yet to officiate but now there was as the asker volunteered. Then another questioner inquired if the couples had bikes. No, Kate didn't think so. Now they did as even a tandem bike was donated to the future couple. Community: DOING GOOD. OK, more wet eyes. 

Kate with last month's Root Note winners (L) and
Andrew Londre (far R) accepting SOUP spoon award

Sentimentality and the SPECIAL WEDDING CEREMONY won the evening's votes. 

'Do good' seems to be the perfect motto for La Crosse SOUP.

Even your city can 
'do good' with this community micro financing idea. 

* I almost forgot to thank the newest addition to last Wednesday night's gathering - MUSIC. A big shout out to the musicians who added to the festive atmosphere. 

Below is the link for July's La Crosse SOUP in case you missed it:
JULY LA X SOUP

What's for Dinner? Improving Community with SOUP

Almost forgot to take the garden soup pic...

Tonight I experienced my first La Crosse Soup. It was as wonderful as friends had told me.  But little did I know how great the soup could be as well as the power of word of mouth.  Tonight's crowd was may be even triple the 2 previous months. Also different tonight were the folks who made the speeches as these were sponsors and organizers of the event for this project and for the crowd gathered behind the coffee house, the Root Note, to listen to four ideas to make La Crosse a better place to live.

Folks are asked to bring their own bowl (smart move: no dishwashing for the folks at the Root Note), make a donation of at least $5 for their bowl of soup, a piece of bread and a cookie and listen to four pitches of possible community projects. 

The rules are after each 4-minute pitch, 4 questions could be raised and answered and then everybody voted on their favorite project of the 4 ideas. The pitch with the highest number of votes wins the total cash collected from both the soup and beer sales and extra donations/ matching challenges. In fact, one of the sponsors asked how many had ridden their bikes to the event and for every cyclist, a dollar was donated. Very cool indeed, encouraging cycling to the downtown event. 42 folks had ridden their bikes this evening so an extra $42 was added to the kitty.

I'm still trying to figure out the significance of the number 4. Perhaps someone will give me some insight and I can enlighten all of us. But, ok 4 is the magic number and easy to remember.

The presenters stood on one of the building's fire escape platforms, microphone in hand to present their pitches.

Michelle

First up was Michelle representing the idea "Comfort for Coulee Kids" whose focus is on older kids, young pre teens/ teens who are overlooked during hospitalization. Soft toy animals aren't as appropriate for this population so start up money balls in wards of behavioral health with perhaps Nerf balls, I-pad stands, I-pads, I-tune cards, etc... You get the idea. A FaceBook page would be set up along with Children's Miracle Network to continue raising funds after the initial start up.  

Mario

 Second pitch (Mario) spoke about the usefulness of a stationary bike ( $3900 needed) for the Y and the Livestrong Foundation's program called Partners in Recovery, a physical and well being program . One upcoming fundraiser is a brat fry to help cover the costly bike.

Andre

Andre's Third pitch was for the "Reduction of Pet Adoption Fees" at the Humane Society to allow more pets to have homes outside the facility.  He spoke of his adopted pets and the exorbitant cost associated with pet adoption.

Corrie and Dane

And last but not least, Corrie and Dane, two owners of both the Root Note and The Mint proposed the expansion of the Root Note backwards to create an "outdoor space" with plans for Beer Garden to foster more community outside. First a fence would be needed.

And the winner of the $1600 plus dollars went to... Can you guess?
There are only four possibilities. 

For which one would you have voted? I'll add the answer after you have had a chance to vote.

I can't wait for August's proposals and to see which one takes home the starter money. What a terrific community project and gathering!

* The Root Note won the evening's votes to convert their alley space to a Beer garden. A nice thank you for small business owners who give so graciously to our community.