For these school students, the ‘soup’ is definitely on

By Charles Sercombe
Seven Holbrook Elementary School students recently learned a whole lot about pitching ideas and making the sale.
The students participated in last Sunday’s SOUP event, which is a grassroots organization that helps fund community projects and businesses.
The idea is pretty simple, and a lot of fun.
Folks from the community meet up at a portion of a warehouse at the former Dana Corp. site on Christopher St., pay a $5 admission, which gets you a bowl of homemade soup, and listen to entrepreneurs, or whoever, who have an idea for a project but needs a little funding to get it going.
After hearing about their ideas, participants eat soup, discuss the proposals among themselves and then vote on who should take home the night’s proceeds.
It usually amounts to a few hundred dollars.
The proposals could be anything from purchasing supplies for a cleanup to someone needing start-up funding to begin crafting items and selling them. On Sunday about 100 people showed up to consider four proposals, but a person representing one proposal didn’t show up so it was down to three.
The Holbrook students, which included Gehan Al Qosimi, Ghader Alquasimi, Douah Saleh, Shetha Saleh, Lena Ahmed, Ghadeer Al-Naggar and Nemah AlQosimi, proposed to reinvent an empty parking lot that serves as the school’s playground and turn part of it into a “fitness and well-being paradise.”
Guiding the students was teacher Michelle Gallacher, who grew up in Hamtramck.
“I’m excited to give something back to the community that gave so much to me,” Gallacher told the gathering before the students took turns explaining the project.
Here’s the deal: the students want to paint lines on the concrete to create a soccer field and paint gaming areas where they can play things like “four square.”
There would be one more area where maps are painted so the kids can learn something new as they play.
As good and confident as the students were, they really had it in the bag from the get-go. More than one participant could be heard saying something to the effect: “Who’s not going to vote for a bunch of kids?”
And yes, they voted for the school project, and the Holbrook students went home with $788 – the most that a SOUP event has awarded.