Soup has been warming hearts and filling appetites for thousands of years. A warm bowl of soup can cure life’s or a campus’s biggest problems. For 11 consecutive years Guilford has competed against our rival school, Greensboro College in a football game, and a canned-soup drive. Cans from each school are tallied, and donated to the Servant Center of Greensboro and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina. Both services collect food for disabled, elderly, and families of low-income.
In Guilford’s “bubble,” students may be unaware of Guilford County’s poverty struggle. Many students don’t acknowledge that a can of soup will help feed the 21 percent of children who live in poverty in our county, or the 981 people who are homeless.
On Saturday, Sept. 6, Guilford and Greensboro football teams will play for bragging rights, and to raise awareness for our city’s unfortunate lower-class.
The competitiveness between campuses exists primarily within the lines of a playing field, but in the canned-soup contest, every non-athlete or athlete can change the rivalry’s outcome.
Finally, athletes and non-athletes will work together.
Outside of their practice, classes and social lives, football players distributed bins to on-campus dorms and buildings, which were then filled by Guilford’s entire population with chicken noodle and Campbell’s chunky soups.
The last day to fill the bins was Thursday, Sept. 4., but cans will be collected as an admission to the football game on Saturday night, at 7 p.m. The entrance fee is two cans.
All the talk about soup has developed an appetite among Guilford football players, who are hungry for another Soup Bowl win. Greensboro College, on the other hand, will attempt to revenge their three-game Soup Bowl skid.
Perhaps Guilford’s campus has their own revenge to settle. Last year, Greensboro College collected 8,300 cans of soup, which Guilford fell short of. This year, our campus needs to raise the bar, and raise Greensboro’s 8,300 donated to 9,000 cans.
Individually, the bar can’t be met, but as a campus, Guilford can surpass any number.