For fifteen years, Motown Soup has been working to end homelessness across the state. They give hundreds of thousands of dollars by producing and selling delicious soup and food mixes.
Zakary Kennedy: We make twenty-three different varieties four dips barbecue sauces barbecue rubs desserts there’s about fifty different products we make now.
Mitch: Your first factory so to speak (Zak: yeah) was in the basement of a church?
Zackary: It’s still in the basement of the church it’s in a state licensed kitchen right there at Trinity Utica.
Two hundred volunteers, most of whom has full time jobs, work twice a week and one Saturday a month at Trinity Lutheran Church in Utica packaging thousands of orders.
Mitch: You’re able to do this kind of volume hundreds of thousands of dollars of soup and you do it as a part-time thing?
Zakary: Yes (Mitch: Wow) Yes. A lot of our volunteers work on a daily basis their normal nine to five jobs and are able to come out and give us a couple hours every week. People love the story they love what they can do it’s a way that they can do something for our community and it stays right here in Michigan.
And the proof is …well in the soup! People not only love the story, they also love what Motown Soup sells.
Zakary: We hit a million dollars this year we affected 82 charities over the fourteen years and our goal is to continue to grow and develop and try to impact all of the area so if we sell in the UP of Michigan we give back to the UP if we sell to Grand Rapids the money goes back there as well. The mission of Motown Soup is to end homelessness and hunger throughout the state of Michigan.
Mitch: By selling a lot of soup
Zakary: By selling a lot of soup (Laughing)
Zakary Kennedy and all the volunteers at Motown Soup are proving that soup really is good for the soul right here in the heart of Detroit.
