It's become a Penticton tradition, and Thursday the 2024 edition of the annual Discovery House "Soup is Good Food" fundraiser kicked off with a spirited vegetable chop-a-thon in the commercial kitchen of the organization's Winnipeg Street facility.
Over the course of the next four weeks, Discovery House residents, with the expert direction of local chef Shayna Shulman, formerly of Smuggler's Smokehouse, will produce eight unique gourmet soups to sell to the general public.
The eight soups, plus a ninth, donated by the Lakeside Resort, will be available for pickup and delivery each of the next four Fridays (Feb. 23, March 1, March 8, March 15). Each bowl is accompanied by a fresh bun from COBS Bread and a quality hot coffee from the likes of Blenz and Starbucks.
Orders must be placed in advance, either online here or via telephone at 250-328-4340. Orders placed by 3:30 pm on the Wednesday of each week will be fulfilled the following Friday (two days later).
The price? A mere eight bucks a bowl, and volume discounts are available. Two bowls are $15. Three are $22. Six are $42. Ten or more bowls are just $6.60 each.
And if your total surpasses $40, delivery throughout the Penticton/Summerland region is absolutely free.
This year's version of the event is unique in that it's the very first time all the soups (except the Lakeside offering) will be created at the Winnipeg Street kitchen, by residents. Typically, most are donated.
"Before my time, they had it over at the Wade Street house and the fundraiser was at the church beside it," said Discovery House spokesperson and fundraiser coordinator Richard Thompson.
"It was a sit-down thing, but it's evolved from that since COVID. Now it's delivery. And this year we got a permit to make all the soups out of here. We're prepared for up to 700 bowls of soup per week."
According to Thompson, Soup is Good Food does get the odd single-bowl order (which must be picked up at the house). But the vast majority are destined for groups – businesses, school faculties and the like.
One of the guys in the kitchen during our Thursday drop-in was Kade Robertson. At just 19 years of age, Robertson's the youngest resident at Discovery House.
And while it was especially sad to see a kid of that age in the program, it was heartening at the same time.
"I've been here 24 days," the friendly Robertson told PentictonNow. "For me, it was a problem with drugs from a young age. Mostly fentanyl and weed.
"It was in Kelowna. I was hanging around with the wrong group of guys. Just a bad time in my life."
Robertson got in deep just a couple months after he graduated high school.
"I was bullied all the way through school," he said, "and I always struggled to understand who I was as a person because I always tried to fit in with everyone."
He ultimately ended up at a treatment facility, but through his own admission screwed up the opportunity. But he got lucky. He got a second chance, at Discovery House.
"This place is saving my life," he said. "It's an amazing place. The staff here has all been through it so they know how to deal with it and how to talk to the guys.
"It's an amazing program too. Really structured, very programmed, so you don't have much down time."
He hopes to stick with it for the initial 90-day treatment phase, then move to a second-stage facility before heading back into the world.
"I want to try to get into college," he said "I'd like to be an arborist.
"But if I don't get into that field, I want to help other young people. There's not enough support for them. I want to try to help those who feel that can’t do it alone."
For Richard Thompson, who we met several paragraphs ago, the evolution from down-and-out substance abuser to key Discovery House staffer has been surreal.
"It's a shock that I made it two years clean and sober," he told us. "I was overdosing almost daily back then. My family thought they'd have to plan my funeral. They were expecting that call at 3 in the morning.
But now, he continued, his life has done a complete 180. And the capper was an official trip to Vancouver a couple weeks back.
"Two weeks ago I went to Vancouver and sat with the premier and the minister of mental health and addictions," he said. "They had an announcement about more funding for beds and we were part of that. All the big news channels were there."
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"You know, I used to ask myself why I was spared, and I think it's for what I'm doing now."
For more info on the Discovery House Soup is Good Food fundraiser, on now through March 15, head here.
