Soupy Sales

by Justin Collis, Gamma Chi – TBΣ, Mansfield University |

At Mansfield University, in the hills of Pennsylvania, the chapters of Gamma Chi (TBΣ) and Epsilon Iota (KKΨ) have been holding an ongoing project since 1971. We like to call this project Soupy Sales. This project is a fundraiser and service project all in one.

When the organizations began this project in 1971 they had the intentions of a bake sale in mind. They started selling baked goods and chips outside of our schools band room throughout the week. After some time of growing, the organizations requested a room from the university in which they could permanently settle the convenience store that we call soupy sales.

Soupy, as we refer to it often, derived its name from when music majors at Mansfield University were seen walking around the cold campus drinking their warm soup from soup containers, from then on we were called “Soupys”. From this we thought to name the fundraiser “Soupy Sales”.

In Soupy we continue to sell a variety of goods including: Chips, Sodas, Water, Hot Pockets®, Little Debbie® Snacks, Candy Bars, Pop Tarts®, Juice, Gatorade®, Breakfast foods, Klondike® Bars, Yogurt, Applesauce, Airheads®, Ramen, and of course Soup-To-Go. Recently we also purchased a Keurig® Coffee Maker. So far the Keurig® has been a hit.

The treasurers of each organization work very hard to buy good value products that we can sell at a low price while keeping the project running and making a reasonable profit.

At the beginning of the semester we ask each sister and brother to schedule a “Soupy Hour” in which they devote an hour each week to work Soupy. During this hour the sister or brother stocks, cleans, and sells all of the items that we keep in stock. We have a cash box that we have to make change out of and keep the money that we make during the hour

But how is this a service project? Soupy is a service project because annually we take 7% of Soupy’s profit to buy music stands and we buy ten reams of paper for our music department. Besides this the chapters made over $1000 in profit this year which we could use for all of the other projects that we do. While keeping this all in mind the treasurers work very hard to keep the prices affordable because we all know the college students are broke.

This also is a very social area. Students and professors love Soupy Sales because of how convenient it is. Our music building is at the top of a tall hill and it takes a lot of energy to walk down to the dining hall. When someone wants a snack it is much easier to walk down the few steps to soupy and spend a dollar rather than walk down the hill to our dining hall and waste a lot of money on not so good food.