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Rabbi Chaim Hilel, of Chabad SLO and Cal Poly, has delivered free hot, homemade chicken soup to sick students in the dorms for close to a decade in San Luis Obispo. 

It started as a way to connect with the Jewish students on campus, as well as maybe get rid of leftover soup from the group’s traditional weekly Friday night dinner.

“It’s like a no-brainer,” Hilel said. “You have a bunch of chicken soup anyways. If there’s any leftovers, you just package them individually and then during the week, if someone’s sick, you deliver them chicken soup.”

Hilel said he put it on the Chabad Cal Poly website as “just one of the things we offer,” not really expecting it to spread beyond the group — but then it did.

“Somehow, I don’t even know how or when, I guess somebody posted it or someone forwarded to one of the non-Jewish parents,” Hilel said. “And she emailed us and said, ‘Hey, my child’s not Jewish, but can you deliver chicken soup?’ I’m like, ‘Sure, why not?’”

It took off from there, he said. 

Hilel, who makes the soup himself, said he tries to keep a stock of between 10 and 20 individually packaged bowls of soup in his freezer, ready to deliver, though during the busy cold and flu season, he might run out. 

“I have a heads up when the ‘Poly Plague’ is hitting because I’ll see the number of soups go up exponentially,” he said. “It’ll go from one or two a week to three or four a day.”

During fall quarter, Hilel delivered 120 soups to sick students, an average of 10 bowls per week. 

Parents of sick students in particular have been thankful for the service Hilel offers.

“I get some really, really nice comments — that also keeps me going, you know? You actually feel like you’ve made a difference,” he said in an interview with The Tribune near the end of the quarter. “People will tell you, like, you know, ‘I’m 3,000 miles away and my child didn’t eat in two days — I just got one this week: ’My child hasn’t eaten in two days. The first thing he put into his mouth was your chicken soup and he said it was delicious.’ That energy keeps you going.”

It’s not easy work, especially in a time of COVID when the hand-off method had to change a little bit, but Hilel said he wouldn’t dream of stopping now.

“When I started, it was sort of like a service, and you know, how many times will people actually do it?” he said. “Once it started (to blow up), I don’t have the heart to stop. … Every good deed changes the world for the better. So this is one of the ways I can make that happen. That’s why we keep doing it.”

How to order chicken soup delivery and how to support the program

The process of ordering a soup delivery for your student is straightforward: Simply go to the Chabad SLO website (www.chabadslo.com), and click on “Chicken Soup Express” under the “Chabad on Campus” tab. 

From there, you fill out a form which includes the name of the student, their dorm address, their phone number and the best time to deliver. 

According to the form, Hilel does not make deliveries between Friday and Sunday, or on Jewish holidays, so orders made those days should be resubmitted on Monday if they are still needed. Donations are requested, but not required.

Once the delivery is ordered, Hill will meet the student (or their roommate, if needed) on campus outside their dorm to pass along the soup. He then sends a message to whoever ordered the delivery to confirm it has been dropped off. 

For those who wish to help support the Chicken Soup Express, you can donate to Chabad SLO and Cal Poly, and specifically to the soup delivery program, at bit.ly/3FEDCoo. During the group’s One More Light Campaign, donations received will be tripled thanks to a matching promise from donors. 

(The Tribune)

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