As the The Stewpot‘s Soup’s On! chefs gathered in The Thompson kitchen on Monday, January 27, and rows of salads were being prepped, Chief Chef Brian Luscher recalled how as a young eager beaver he had arrived in Dallas but couldn’t get a checking account for lack of the required paperwork. Telling the nine Soup’s On! chefs (Chef Jeff Bekavac of Goodwins, Chef J. Chastain of Sister, The Charles and El Carlos Elegante, Chef Omar Flores of Event Coast, Chef Michael Haynes of The Stewpot, Chef Danyele McPherson of Purple Collar Kitchen and Goodwins, Chef Janice Provost of Parigi Chef Anastacia Quiñones-Pittman of José, Chef Jeramie Robison of Thompson Dallas and Chef Abraham Salum of Salum) the story, he said he could only imagine how difficult it was for today’s homeless to get the basic essentials of identity like an I.D. card.
After the chefs were told the day’s POA and went to their stations to prepare their soups, Co-Chairs Isabell and Trey Higginbotham and Buddy Jordan, The Stewpot Executive Director Brenda Snitzer, Rev. Amos Disasa, emcee WFAA’s Cynthia Izaguirre and keynote speaker Nicholas “Nick” Kristof did a mic check in the ballroom. Cynthia was bright and chipper as usual when asked about the developments of the news industry…. When asked if he should be referred to as Philip Higginbotham or Trey Higginbotham in association with the day’s fundraiser, Philip/Trey said it didn’t matter as much as the cause.
In the meantime, the guests like Debbie and David Johnson, Margie and Ray Francis, Robert Wilonsky, Rusty Duvall, Venise Stuart, Sarah Jo Hardin and Liz Bruni gathered in the lobby to check out artwork created by The Stewpot clients and catch up with friends.
Former Co-Chairs Christy Coltrin and Brad Oldham reported that Brad has one project slated for later this year in Plano with tulips and another one in the Sonoma Valley for a winery. In keeping with tradition, Christy and Brad had created commemorative spoons as gifts for the chefs and sponsors. Since this was the 50th anniversary, the spoons were gold in color. Still another nod to the 50th anniversary were the bowls on the tables that Brad had helped in executing. In addition to each guest receiving a book containing the soup recipes being served by the chefs, plus a bowl decorated by Stewpot’s Art Program artists Roger Blais, Cornelious Brackens Jr., Edwin Fuller and Charles William, a pedestal planter was available for purchase decorated by Stewpot artist Michael Norwood.
After 50 years that began with doling out soup for the needy, The Stewpot had grown as had the need. To prove the point, it was revealed that since 1975, it had served 8,784,356 meals, recovered 112,132 vital ID documents, awarded four-year scholarships to 233 student for colleges or vocational schools since 1991 and provided 320 people with housing thanks to its Housing Program that began in 2021.
To keep up with that growth this past year, The Stewpot had stepped up to absorb the City Square program. As a result, the Stewpot was moving its operation down the street to the former CitySquare campus. But this move also meant greater demands, as well as greater supporters.
Thanks to the TurningPoint Foundation, Gingie and Marc Watson and an anonymous donor, a match of $100,000 was announced.
After the presentation of the chefs onstage and their annual group photo in the lobby, the program continued in the ballroom. If ever The Stewpot had wanted a cheerleader, they found it in twice Pulitzer Prize winner Kristof. From the beginning of his introduction, he extolled the shining star of Dallas in its efforts to reduce homelessness. “Homelessness is an enormous problem all around the country,” he said. “Most recent figures show it’s been getting worse nationwide, with just a couple of places around the country where there’s been real progress. You know, one of those places where there’s been progress is Dallas and there are multiple reasons for that and one is The Stewpot.”
He admitted that he was amazed that The Stewpot had a wait list for volunteers.
Despite having traveled the world to cover dramatic conflicts, he’s still optimistic. It had resulted from his returning to his hometown in rural Oregon. The community had been small but appeared picture-perfect with a of population of 500+. During Nick’s youth, the area’s economy had been dependent on agriculture, timber, and manufacturing, and families had been able to lift themselves up. There were five kids from the Knapp family who rode the school bus with Nick.
But because “there had been good jobs available at the mill and in the factories, education had not been enough of a priority in my community. And when those good jobs went away, then that’s about when meth arrived. The mills closed and people self medicated.
“More than a third of the kids on my old school bus are gone from drugs, alcohol and suicide.” The Knapp kids were all victims. One died from liver failure from drug and alcohol abuse; a second died in a house fire when he passed out; a third blew himself up cooking meth; the sister died of hepatitis or maybe drug use; and the baby brother died just a few years ago of a fentanyl overdose.
“Their mom is still alive in her 80s, walking up hills, every hill, every day to visit the graves of her five children and trying to understand how this could happen in my community, where we prided ourselves on the way we looked after each other. And yet, three of my schoolmates died on the streets while homeless… It was particularly disheartening to recognize that two of the boys on my number six bus were both convicted and sent to prison for raping very young children.”
He explained that “it’s partly about poverty, but it’s also about educational failure. It’s about family breakdown, chronic pain, joblessness, addiction and all these work together, and we don’t fully understand them or how to measure them. But we do know that these problems have been aggravated. We’ve lost one million Americans just since 2000 from overdoses. That’s more than the number of people lost in all the wars in America over the last 150 years.”
He then told how the loss of 3,000 people on 9/11 resulted in an enormous investment of trillions of dollars to address our security crises. “Now we lose more than that number every week from substance use, and I don’t think we’ve seen an adequate policy response, an adequate national response.”
According to his research, he surmised that, “When people lose their job or their sense of purpose, their sense of connection in the community, when they lose that sense of hope, then they lose their footing, then they’re more inclined to self medicate, to make bad choices. And so one way we can intervene is to give people the toolbox to find that sense of self efficacy, of self respect, of friendship, of bonds.”
Nick pointed out that “20% of the poorest Americans actually donate to charity more as a fraction of income than the 20% of the most affluent Americans. Now, why is that? It’s not that affluent Americans are any less good or any less compassionate than anyone else, but it seems to be a question of insulation, and that if you are affluent in America today, then by and large, you probably live in a nice neighborhood, and most of your friends are doing okay, and you’re intellectually aware of these needs, but it’s not something you’re likely to see every day. And in contrast, if you were poor in America today, then you see people every day who are even poorer. And so that’s when you reach into your pocket and help others. And so we have to figure out, I think, how we can overcome this insulation and do more to love our neighbors and support our neighbors.”
He went on to say, “It’s not just a do-good or bleeding-heart thing. It’s also a practical necessity. If we as a nation want to be competitive, if Dallas, as a city, wants to be competitive, wants to attract tourists and investors and businesses, then we have to do a better job helping communities in need.”
He closed with a story about a young American aid worker woman he had known in Darfur. “She was so courageous. I never never saw her flinch; new saw her lose it.” Then she returned to the states for Christmas at her grandmother’s. Sitting in the backyard, her eyes shifted to a bird feeder and she “just collapsed weeping. My friend thought in a flash just how lucky she was to be born and grow up in a country where we not only can be pretty confident that warlords aren’t going to rampage through our streets, but that, by and large, most of us aren’t going to go hungry, that we’re going to have enough clothing, that we’re even going to have enough extra to help wild birds get through the winter. And she thought she realized the degree to which she had won the lottery of life, and that when you win that lottery of life, you have a responsibility to pay it forward.”