With 25 percent of Philadelphia families below the poverty line, soup kitchens are essential to Philadelphia's poor.
Yesterday, Civic House Associate Director Alison LaLond and a group of Penn students discussed the effectiveness of the city's soup kitchens.
The group used a ball of wool to demonstrate the web of poverty.
They wound the wool around College junior Marlin Bottex as they discussed causes of poverty and unwound it as they discussed ways of poverty alleviation.
Some members of the group argued that soup kitchens are only temporary relief and do not assist in lifting people out of poverty.
However, others pointed out that they offer hope and strength to the needy and desperate.
LaLond concurred.
"The little kids are so grateful that I want to cry," she said.
However, she pointed out, working in soup kitchens is not always a good experience.
"I remember someone throwing a bowl of lasagna at my face in a Baltimore soup kitchen," she said.
The Civic House has been associated with soup kitchen relief since its inception as the campus hub for community service in 1997.
Volunteers with the Civic House operate in West Philadelphia near the Penn campus.
Bottex, who has worked closely with the Civic House since 2004, said this serves a dual purpose.
"The aim is not just to provide relief, but to get Penn students involved in this worthwhile effort," she said.
Poverty is a sobering issue in the City of Brotherly Love.
Four hundred thousand greater Philadelphians live in poverty and risk chronic hunger.
Of these, 80 percent are black.
Nationally, of every 100 citizens below the poverty line, 40 are black.
Penn was galvanized into relief work when a homeless man who was a regular on the Penn campus, Stanley Biddle, froze to death in October 1984.
Students and local residents responded by forming the University City Hospitality Coalition, which runs a network of soup kitchens to ward poverty.
Amongst other initiatives, they serve dinner to the homeless every day of the week, except Tuesday.
College junior Ajay Gupta felt that he had been shaken awake during the talk.
"I plan to work with the Civic House and volunteer in soup kitchens," he said. "I think it is an important duty for us all."
