Skip to main content

Winter Win-Win

 


As you may have guessed, I love soup. In fact I made some for dinner last night. It was rather an impromptu affair, so I decided to call the result “Surprise Chicken Tortilla Soup.” It was a surprise because I thought the package I was thawing had sausages inside. 

A much more welcome surprise is the news that Atwater’s is combining their soup-making talents with an initiative to support HoCo non-profit Upcycled.


My first thought: cool! Upcycled is that innovative company I learned more about through the Changemaker Challenge. From their website:

Upcycled is a waste diversion organization established as a 501(c)3 corporation, that follows the Precious Plastics model. Upcycled Inc. takes discarded plastics and upcycles them into long-term purpose products. This process begins with separating the plastics by type, shredding them into small flakes, cleaning them, and melting the plastic into molds. This is conducted using a series of machines that can morph the discarded plastic into useful configurations. We create products that can be used to reach our mission of giving plastic a long-term purpose and creating a more environmentally conscious community.

You can learn more about Upcycled at their website, and can follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

As for Atwater’s, I know they’re not in Howard County…but they are supporting a Howard County business and, well: soup! Could Atwater’s be the magical soup company I’ve been searching for? They’re certainly not strictly a soup operation, but, here’s an example of yesterday’s offerings.



Atwater’s celebrates Soup Month each January with a variety of soup-related activities and contests:

Soup Month is here! Join us in celebrating 18 years of soup tradition:
Customer Favorite Friday- You ask, we listen! Visit our website to vote for your favorite soup. The top customer choices will be featured on our menu every Friday throughout January.
Quarts for a Cause- 10% of all cold quarts of soup sold in January will be donated to @go_upcycled, a local non-profit that turns plastic waste into building materials for park benches, picnic tables, and garden beds.

Atwater’s has a number of locations in the Baltimore area and they’re all participating in Soup Month. Even if you’re not in Catonsville you can still make your soup dreams come true. And you can help out a worthy HoCo nonprofit at the same time.

I wonder if they serve soup by the bucket? 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Fresh

One of my favorite days in the Spring comes when this year’s list of Farmer’s Markets is released. That happened this week. New this year are markets in Old Ellicott City and the “Merriweather Market” which, according to the address, will be located here . I mistakenly thought at first glance that it was in the new-construction part of the Merriweather District. I find the name confusing considering its actual location. I’m going to guess that this market is an initiative of the Howard Hughes Corporation because the name seems chosen more for branding purposes than anything else.  Alas, the market in Maple Lawn is gone. The thread on the markets on the County Executive’s FB page will provide you with quite the education in who actually runs the Farmers Markets vs what people often think is going on. Short answer: they are not  chosen nor run by the county. Each market is an independent entity, sometimes started by community volunteers, other times supported by local businesses...

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...