‘Stone Soup’

Three soldiers come to a village tired and hungry from fighting in a war and ask for food and shelter. The villagers who have been housing and feeding soldiers for many years, have little to feed their own families, tell them they have nothing to offer, and hope that they will travel on to the next village. The soldiers suggest that they make ‘stone soup’ so everyone can have something to eat, a meal, they explain, that they had prepared for the emperor himself during these tough times. Intrigued, the villagers bring the soldiers a large pot which they fill with water and warm over a fire in the middle of the town square. One of the soldiers looks around, finds the perfect rock, and places it in the pot to cook. While standing around the pot, a crowd starts to gather. One of the soldiers suggests that when they made the soup for the emperor it had some carrots in it. One of the villagers offers, ‘I have some carrots!’ One by one the villagers bring carrots, potatoes, meat and other vegetables to add. The end of the story is simply that their joint efforts created a great meal for everyone to enjoy despite the tough times they were all in.

IGNITE invites you and your organization to look in “your pantry” to see what items you may have to put together with others to create some wonderful soup!

IGNITE acts as a facilitator (or head chef) to bring groups together in the design and implementation of enrichment programs. We consider the “ingredients” that an organization or even an individual have to be the thing or things that they do best. So whether you are a teacher wanting to bring an astronaut to your classroom, or an after school group wanting to excite a group of students, about the weather, oceans, or space, we hope you will contact us so we can help stir up some fun!