tMetro

Always A Winner

Shaarey Zedek's Souperbowl helps the homeless avoid frigid streets.

Keri Guten Cohen
Story Development Editor

W

Julia Eisenberg, 13, of Franklin and liana Goss, 13, of West Bloomfield work with Tobye Bello of Congregation Shaarey Zedek to

fill containers of soup, signature dish for the synagogue's second annual Souperbowl.

241''

Charita Jordan shows off her daughter, Mia Symone, 3

Kim Broner of West Bloomfield

helps her children, Sarah, 8, and

months, to Wendy Arnold of Farmington and her son, Sam, 6. Josh, 10, put out food for lunch.

Far left: Souperbowl co-chairs Lori

Silverstein of Huntington Woods and

Bonnie Laker-Winkler of Franklin with

food ready for the tables.

Left: Aaron Sherbin of Birmingham with

his daughters, Meredith, 9, and Grace, 7,

help pass out cookies.

ith temperatures in single dig-
its and the wind-chill factor
in negative numbers on Super
Bowl Sunday, 260 or so homeless people
from Metro Detroit were especially grate-
ful to spend the day inside Congregation
Shaarey Zedek in Southfield.
They enjoyed the synagogue's second
annual Souperbowl, an event filled with
hot meals served restaurant-style by vol-
unteers, a magic show, movies, inflated
toys for the youngsters, consultations with
volunteer doctors and plenty of warm
smiles and conversation from volunteers
of all ages.
"There's a lot of love in here said
Robert Hubbard, 44, of Pontiac, who has
been homeless only for a few days. Like
everyone who attended, he received a large
drawstring duffle filled with sweatshirt
and sweatpants, a knit hat, gloves, T-shirt,
blanket, socks and toiletries — all donat-
ed from the Shaarey Zedek community
and beyond.
For many, just being out of the cold was
enough. For others, the conversations they
had with volunteers was just as warming.
And that feeling went both ways.
"It's nice to socialize and learn their
backgrounds:' said Julia Eisenberg, 13, of
Franklin, a student at Hillel Day School of
Metropolitan Detroit. "Some have really
hard lives. Once they had jobs and then
something happened."
She was working with fellow Hillel stu-
dent Marni Foster, 13, of West Bloomfield,
doing whatever job they could to help.
They found a cute child's hat with earflaps
and decided to give it to one of the 60 chil-
dren present.
"It's really nice to help people said
Marni, who was one of about 600 volun-
teers working shifts throughout the day.
Now in its second year, the Souperbowl
nearly doubled the number of people it
helped, said Rabbi Joseph Krakoff, who
was working on special requests with
Rabbi Eric Yanoff, event co-chairs Bonnie
Laker Winkler and Lori Silverstein.
Shaarey Zedek's Tobye Bello once again
coordinated the massive project. They
worked extra magic to make sure no one
had to walk in the cold to a shelter from a
drop-off point when the event ended after
dinner.

February 8 • 2007

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