DENVER — Some people associate cake with birthdays, but at Emily Griffith Technical College, the staff and students prefer soup.
In celebration of what would have been Emily Griffith's 154th birthday, school staff handed out free cups of soup to honor their founder's mission of ensuring her students were never hungry.
"Every year on her birthday... we serve soup, free to our students and community, in honor of everything she believed in," said Bonnie Doolittle, marketing coordinator. "It's made by our culinary students here, and it was beef barley...It was a smash hit."
The school's long history with soup started with Griffith when she was running her Opportunity School. The students often came from impoverished backgrounds. One day, a student fainted from hunger. From there on, Griffith pledged to keep her students fed by supplying soup every day.
So, why soup?
"I think having soup and serving something that's so comforting and so personal....It really brings [Griffith] to life," said Doolittle.