1000 bowls of soup a week at the Venezuelan border

UPDATE: This campaign has ended! Thank you for a successful 18 months. You can contribute to our new fundraising cycle here.

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This one-year campaign funds a community organization to make more than 1000 servings of hearty soup each week at the Venezuelan border in Colombia. 

Since February 2021, we send $160 per week to Ana Teresa Castillo Ramos, an awarded humanitarian, community leader and president of Asociacion Deredez , in order to fund the weekly kitchen. 

Check out the short video features below to see what we do, or keep scrolling to read more. 

"Soup with Love," an intro to the project:

"Soup with Love" in a Migrant Settlement: 

Hunger is widespread here, where years of migration from Venezuela have left the area overcrowded and impoverished.

This project will last for 52 weeks, during which time we hope to build a sustainable program. After that, we hope to find institutional supporters who can fund the project long-term.

*(Running record of bi-weekly money transfers is available here.)*  

When this campaign began in February 2021, we sent $110 each week and planned to fund 200 servings of soup. Through process improvement, deal hunting and kitchen upgrades, we increased production beyond initial expectations. Thanks to strong donor support, we raised the weekly budget in May to $160. Now we make more than 800 weekly servings of soup. 

What's in the goal? $160/week for the remaining 39 weeks of this project = $6,240. $110/week for the first 13 weeks + $170 for a commercially sized stove and pot = $1,610. Add $150 to round our yearlong goal to $8,000. 

What's in a soup? 220 pounds of beef bone, plus yuca, potato, plantain, carrots, green onions, squash, cilantro, pasta and salt, cooked in 4 giant pots.

Who gets the money? Transfers go directly to Ana Teresa Castillo Ramos, founder and director of Asociación Deredez , a community organization she runs out of her small home about 200 meters from the Venezuelan border. Ana Teresa herself has been a victim of the region's long humanitarian tragedy; she was displaced by the 1999 La Gabarra Masacre and Venezeula's 2015 expulsion of Colombians. She saw her husband executed by militants and has repeatedly faced threats from criminal organizations. But, she says, she's turned her pain to love, and dedicates herself entirely to community service. 

Five hundred bowls of soup per week might not seem like much, but in a region where hunger is widespread and help is hard to come by, this project drew enough attention that Colombian TV news produced a spot feature on the project. Check it out:

Why is hunger widespread here? The region harbors hundreds of thousands of refugees from the collapse of neighboring Venezuela. Families have crowded into this area to compete for scant resources. Economic downturn since the Coronavirus pandemic and the closure of the international border has only made things worse. 

Many families often eat just one meal a day. Many survive off simple foods like pasta and bread. Many live in tarp shelters near the edge of town, or in crowded "rent houses" where 10 families share one bathroom. 

Listen to some beneficiaries of our project talk about conditions of hunger in the community of La Parada: 

Your donation not only provides a meal to a hungry family, it moves money - US dollars at that - into a market that badly needs a capital injection. All groceries are locally bought and local women are paid as kitchen staff.

After one year we hope to find a large donor to fund the kitchen long-term. 

Some photos of the operation:

Ana Teresa stirs soup in her nightgown in the kitchen of her home where she runs her community association. (Photo courtesy of Pu Ying Huang)

Women wait with containers to receive soup at Asociación Deredez on April 24, 2021. (Photo courtesy of Pu Ying Huang)

Ana Teresa serves a bowl of soup. (Photo courtesy of Pu Ying Huang)

More photos:

This is the second fundraiser benefiting Deredez. In the first, we raised $2,300 in December 2020 to distribute 700 kids' Christmas gifts and about 800 meals. A full report for that fundraiser can be found here.

About the author: My name is Dylan Baddour. I reported on the Venezuelan migration for US news media from the Colombian border from 2017-2020, during which time I worked consistently with Ana Teresa. When I left journalism for private intelligence, I resolved not to abandon the humanitarian situation that I'd only watched deteriorate, and to help move dollars into this region in need to assistance.