In conjunction with the biggest weekend of football of the year, Salina’s biggest weekend effort of the year to gather food for the hungry is here. The 2020 Souper Bowl of Hope will culminate on Saturday.

The Souper Bowl of Hope is an effort of Salina churches and businesses to gather cans of soup. Volunteers will be collecting canned soup donations at all three Dillons stores and the Save-A-Lot grocery store. They will be there this weekend again, and then one final time on Saturday Feb 1st, the eve of Super Bowl 54.

According to organizers of the event, volunteers collected 8,469 cans of soup this past weekend.  That total includes almost 6,500 actual cans of soup and over $875 in donations that will be used to buy soup.

Total amount of soup collected thus far  from Salina grocery stores is 15,011.

The collection will resume this coming Saturday at all three Salina Dillons and the Sav-A-Lot store from 10 AM to 6 PM.

Soup and monetary donations are also being collected at several Salina churches.  It won’t be known until the week after the Super Bowl how much will come in from the churches.

The soup will be donated to five organizations that feed the hungry. Those organizations include:

• Salina Emergency Aid Food Bank
• Salina Salvation Army
• Salina Rescue Mission
• Ashby House
• Domestic Violence Association of Central Kansas

The collection effort comes at a critical time. The annual “Project Salina” food drive in May helps stock shelves for the summer months. But by late winter, those shelves start to get bare.