Santa Barbara News Press

KARNA HUGHES, NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
November 4, 2009 12:00 AM

It's 10 a.m. on a recent Sunday and the sky's overcast and gray.

A well-dressed couple in their 30s are strolling along near the hotels on lower Castillo Street, while across the road, a man with a gray beard is slowly pushing a shopping cart covered with tarp.

A line of about 60 people, mostly men in hooded sweatshirts and jackets, has quietly formed in Pershing Park. The assembled quickly file past a row of tables, picking up free sandwiches, hot coffee, juice and the newest addition to these regular Sunday offerings -- homemade, organic soup, ladled out by Anthony Carroccio, 58.

"A couple of months ago if you'd said I was going to be doing this, I would have said you were crazy," Mr. Carroccio, a semi-retired builder and publishing executive, later told the News-Press by phone from his home on the Mesa.

"I'm used to doing marketing and advertising, traveling to conventions with a suit and tie on. Now here I am, making soup with an apron on."

Several months ago, the longtime Santa Barbaran woke up at three in the morning -- which, he says, is when he does his best thinking -- and decided to serve soup to the hungry and homeless.

"I started looking at these guys and looking at the economy and started thinking, 'Oh my God, this could be half the people I know.' It's not like homelessness is a different culture. It's you and I with a few bumps in the road.

"I was like, OK, I'll make some soup. I love to cook."

For the past few months, he's spent Sunday mornings in the park with several volunteers feeding about a hundred people at a time. While he works independently, he's tacked on his efforts to the gatherings organized by Hank Drost, a lay preacher and insurance agent, who's ministered to the souls and bellies of the homeless for more than 20 years.

As his new nonprofit, Organic Soup Kitchen, gets established, Mr. Carroccio hopes to eventually break away from the Pershing Park scene and feed the down-and-out more frequently throughout Santa Barbara.

He envisions a mobile soup kitchen, with a couple of commercial catering trucks that will drive a regular route, serving soup "every day, seven days a week, because people have to eat seven days a week," he said.

"People can come with no questions asked and get a quart or two quarts or three quarts. They can take it to their home or their car or the bushes."

But first, with a crew of volunteers, he plans to host a free Thanksgiving Day meal for between 300 and 500 financially-strapped people Nov. 26 at the Veterans Memorial Building. On the menu: Rosemary roasted turkey with gravy and a quinoa walnut stuffing, roasted brown potatoes, asparagus, broccoli, whipped yams, salad, honey-based cranberry sauce, pies and more.

So far it looks like much of the food will be donated by local businesses including Lazy Acres and Whole Foods. But to cover costs and to raise seed money for the nonprofit, Organic Soup Kitchen will hold a fundraiser from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday at Yoga Soup, featuring live music, a silent auction, a wine station and plenty of food.

"It's a project that's not going to stop at Thanksgiving," said Mr. Carroccio.

An advocate of healthy, nutritious foods who's long enjoyed cooking for others, he decided to make his operation different from other groups and shelters. (In the mid-'90s, he'd founded the national magazine Healing Retreats and Spas, which emphasizes healthy lifestyles, then sold it in 2001.)

"I've noticed that at the shelters, the food isn't quite organic. So I said, you know what? Why don't I feed these people really good food? Food really does affect how you feel. It affects your whole well-being."

And he vowed not to serve people anything he wouldn't eat himself.

"There is a majority of people that feel food is food, and they're lucky to have it... I just can't go down that road."

So week after week, out of pocket, he's bought all organic produce from Givens Farm; as well as high-protein grains, like quinoa; legumes, such as mung beans, lentils and white Northern beans; and distilled water for his soups.

A recent soup was brimming with carrots, celery and pinto and lima beans; another popular soup was coconut milk with roasted yams, corn and kale.

"In fact, the request for this week's soup is beef chili, so that's what it's going to be. You gotta give them what they want," he said. Only the protein will be a high-quality, organic buffalo meat that's low in fat.

Mr. Carroccio is committed to serving up fresh, whole foods -- no table scraps or junk foods.

"It's not just getting expired foods from the supermarkets or the convenience stores and throwing it out for them. That's not what to do.

And "heavy carbs and sugars -- that's the last thing these people need," he said. "They need nutritious food to get their heads screwed on straight."

That day in the park, many folks who'd stopped by for a cup of soup didn't seem aware that it was organic, but they appreciated having something to fill their stomachs.

"We're really hungry. We didn't eat for three days," said Debbie Taft, 51, who, with her boyfriend David Culver, has been in Santa Barbara for about three months.

The couple, wearing windbreakers and backpacks, were eating the soup along with ham-and-cheese sandwiches provided by Mr. Drost.

"It's good soup. I love it. I like it," Mr. Culver, 43, told his girlfriend, while digging in for another spoonful. "It's the best tasting soup I've had in a long time."

Sitting under a big tree in the park, a Santa Barbaran, who gave her name as Paula, 41, said she'd been homeless for eight years. She's been helping out Mr. Drost on Sundays for the past year, spreading mayonnaise on sandwiches.

"Out here, we don't get a lot of soup. It's very nutritious and has a lot of vitamins and minerals."

To try to ward off sickness, "we're all eating garlic like crazy," added her boyfriend, Mark Rose, 40, who'd broken his foot and was unable to work.

A Santa Barbara native, Jim, 47, said some of the other homeless people don't realize the importance of nutritious foods.

"There's a lot of guys who don't take care of themselves. I'm not really too hip on lentils, but I'll eat the soup every time I show up. As far as the rest of it, it's just add-on fillers."

When reached by the News-Press, Rebecca Wilson, director of communications for the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission, which serves free breakfasts and dinners to the homeless, said she appreciated the idea of a daily mobile soup kitchen.

"This actually fills a void, which is wonderful, because they're serving lunch," she said.

And "the thing is, he's making it available to them by meeting them where they are, so I think that is very accommodating." That kind of soup kitchen has the potential to reach those who are reluctant to come into shelters.

Mr. Carroccio said he's been consulting with social workers and homeless advocates to plan out the most effective route. Ideally, he'd like to serve about 300 people, with three stops daily.

(More than 4,000 people are homeless on any given night and as many as 945 people are chronically homeless, according to estimates in the 2006 "Santa Barbara County-wide 10-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness." A figure that's more difficult to pinpoint is those people who are temporarily in financial trouble and needing food but who aren't homeless.)

As for the future, while realizing that times are tough economically, Mr. Carroccio is determined to raise the funds needed to launch his mobile soup kitchen. And, with his business background, he hopes to be able to create a model for a successful nonprofit that will be replicable in other cities.

"Every day that I see these people on the street, it gives me that much more determination," he said. "Like, 'I will do this.' "

"I don't want to save the world. The only thing I can do is to serve some good, wholesome soup to everyone every day."

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