Brighten Your Day

Here's How A Melbourne Soup Shop Gives Free Soup To The Homeless Every Day

November 8, 2016

This is the story of a little soup shop in Melbourne, Australia, that makes a lot of lives better everyday. But you've probably never heard of it.

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The Soup Place is a Melbourne shop where customers can choose to buy a bowl of soup to feed the homeless at a reduced price. People pay $7.50 for a full-priced bowl, and can choose to pay an extra $3.50 to buy one for someone less fortunate.

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From 'keep warm' and 'stay strong' to 'you are important'; they often leave a heart-warming message which is served with the soup.

The store's co-owner, George Paraskevopoulos, says the idea came after he saw a place in New York that gave customers the chance to buy homeless people a slice of pizza.

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The shop has served more than 6,000 meals to the homeless. Today, its walls are almost completely covered with prepaid post-it notes.

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Paraskevopoulos says they have enough tickets to feed their regular homeless customers for six months.

"We're really just a platform, the generosity comes from the public," he says.

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Some people have questioned how they will stop people taking advantage of the system. But Paraskevopoulos says they aren't going to ask people to prove that they are in need.

"We didn't want do any screening," he says. "It's a trust system."

"They get to eat like we do, when they're hungry, from 7 in the morning until 7 in the evening."

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The Facebook page Humans in Melbourne asked a man digging into his soup how it felt to know that people care.

He replied, "You have no idea mate. It means the world."