The Organic Soup Kitchen of Santa Barbara has been providing nutritional meals to low-income families, seniors, and those with chronic illnesses since 2009. Now, they've partnered with DoorDash to bring more meals to the community, feeding over 1,000 local cancer patients and families just last year.
"It's amazing. And when you see their face light up, when you hand them their soup, saying, here's your soup for the day…it's like, Holy crud, I'm doing something good with this, experience at DoorDash," said DoorDash driver Martin Rogers.
Rogers says delivering food over the past three years brings him a lot of joy.
"It's always sweet to help out and bring them their soup when they're not able to commute or be able to drive to the store and get all these fresh ingredients," said Rogers.
Some of Rogers' deliveries are part of Project DASH, DoorDash’s new $2,500 impact grant to Organic Soup Kitchen - helping provide medically tailored meals to the doorstep of residents with CenCal insurance.
"So basically, that means that anybody that has CenCal health insurance can call us and they can choose from our menu of 24 different soup meals, they are complete balanced meals that we handcraft. And they will be delivered to their doorstep," said Organic Soup Kitchen Development Manager, Jennifer Hyle.
Hyle says the non-profit is the first local organization to provide medically supported meals to Santa Barbara. But getting the soup out to ill patients can be challenging.
"Finding volunteers is challenging. Paying for it is expensive. Gas. And, you know, finding an employee that we have to pay to deliver has been very difficult for us. So having the DoorDash partnership has been really helpful," said Hyle.
Just this year, the soup kitchen made 400,000 nutrient-dense soup meals at its on-site kitchen. According to DoorDash representatives, 20,000 of those were delivered by Project DASH, helping the organization provide critical food support to seniors, low-income families, and those experiencing chronic illness.
"So we get all aspects, people that just love soup, to people that are really can't keep anything down and they just have to get something in their body so that they don't experience malnutrition," explained Hyle.
For Rogers, driving for DoorDash is more than just a job.
"You're also making an impact in the community," said Rogers.
