The video showcases the Stew of Sustainability program, a collaborative effort that rescues excess catering and restaurant food and transforms it into high‑quality frozen meals for people experiencing homelessness. Representatives from the donor company Sienna, a soup kitchen partner, and logistics partners (CRVA, Charlotte Convention Center, Second Harvest Food Bank, Roof Above) share testimonials. Sienna introduced a COVID‑era triple‑match donation (3 $ for every $1 contributed), enabling a single donation that resulted in nearly 3,000 lb of food being processed by a five‑person team in about eight hours. The process involves cooling, bagging, and freezing the food under a safety‑monitored program, then storing it for months of use, alleviating the soup kitchen’s staffing and volunteer constraints. Partners describe how the program leverages financial resources, production capacity, and distribution networks to serve more neighbors faster, delivering a tangible, emotionally resonant impact on both staff and the community.
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It's a fantastic program, and it was all about taking excess food by catering and different organizations, restaurants, and finding a way to have that excess food delivered to people in need.
We're called a soup kitchen for a reason, but when we partner with the Stew of Sustainability, we're able to provide, you know, a hot meal that's quite different than soup and sandwiches.
I've been so touched I'm touched by how much they care, you know, that they, they are always looking for ways to help us.
It was a fantastic donation. It's our largest so far, but this is our 5th time doing that.
My company, Sienna, in this time of COVID they instituted a triple match. So they're giving 3 for 1. For every dollar I give, they give 3.
Well, you know, this one gift by the Sienna Corp was just absolutely amazing. With a freezer full of food from one donation, I mean, that's like something we just wouldn't even have imagined.
We're looking at close to 3,000 pounds of food. A team of 5 was able to produce this, cool it, bag it, freeze it, and, you know, I'd say an 8-hour time period.
They have it down.
It's not even science, it's an art, you know. It's, it's a beautiful poetry in motion of the way they take care of this food and push it out. If I didn't have this food, like, to serve chicken and to serve a meal like what y'all get, what they give me, it would take me 2 days to do it. It's just a big help because with I have such a small staff, and also my facilities are so small, and we're serving large numbers of neighbors. It's just helping out so much.
What I didn't realize was the intricacies of the process to, to, to make it, to freeze it under a carefully monitored program for safety, and then have them keep it in their freezer, and then it's just available to them whenever they need it over the next several months. So it's a really convenient way for them And their volunteering is down, so they don't have all the sandwich makers like they used to. So it's filling a need that's even more severe for them at this time.
What we have with this partnership is people each with their own unique talents figuring out, this is what I do well, how can I use this thing to help end homelessness? With the Stew of Sustainability, you know, we've been able to partner in this innovative way so we can serve more people faster and with a high-quality product.
I think it's important to acknowledge all the people and organizations that came together to make this happen. And, you know, it's the CRVA, it's the Charlotte Convention Center, it's the Second Harvest Food Bank who helps transport the food. It's this whole process, this Stew of Sustainability process that allows the food And then of course, Roof Above, who's the recipient and the distribution of all this food to the community, was, you know, they're, they're great partners all working together.
What we love about this partnership with Stew of Sustainability is that we're really leveraging resources in unique ways. So donors provide money here, we're able to leverage the buying power of our partners their production abilities and then deliver that back to us. And so we get more food, we get more bang for our buck through this partnership than we do just in providing food through our soup kitchen.
This is just something that brings joy to my heart because it's just a blessing. It's a blessing to receive this. It's a blessing for my team. It's also, it's a big blessing for the neighbors.
It was amazing the amount of impact the money can make, just in terms of the sheer volume and It's really gratifying to be able to see the— your dollars at work for something so tangible, and then to see it come to an organization like this that'll be sticking into soup pots tomorrow.
