Help us serve fresh, nutritious meals
Help us serve fresh, nutritious meals
Every day, hundreds of people come to Fondation Mère Sofia's Soup Kitchen in Lausanne. Some are experiencing homelessness, others are working but struggling to make ends meet, and many simply don't know where their next meal will come from.
A warm meal is more than food. It is comfort, dignity and a moment of human connection.
Your donation helps us buy fresh ingredients such as vegetables, fruit, eggs and dairy products, allowing us to prepare healthy, balanced meals instead of relying solely on donated surplus food.
Together, we can ensure that everyone who walks through our doors is welcomed with a nutritious meal and a smile.
Every contribution makes a difference.
Running a soup kitchen every single day of the year is a constant challenge.
Our kitchen team and volunteers prepare hundreds of meals every day using food recovered from supermarkets, wholesalers and local partners. Because we never know exactly what ingredients will arrive, every day requires creativity, flexibility and experience. Menus are designed around available food rather than fixed recipes.
Food recovery, however, cannot cover all our needs. To prepare balanced and nutritious meals, we still need to purchase essential ingredients such as fresh fruit and vegetables, cooking oil, stock, dairy products and other everyday basics.
Demand for our services continues to grow. Many evenings, we now welcome more than 300 guests, while lunch service regularly exceeds 200 people. Our Soup Kitchen is open 365 days a year, every evening from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm, and from Wednesday to Sunday, also at lunchtime from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm. We never close.
Meeting this growing demand while maintaining the quality of our meals is an ongoing financial and logistical challenge.
Every donation helps us continue serving fresh, nutritious meals to people experiencing food insecurity.
Financial support allows us to purchase the essential ingredients that cannot be recovered through food donations, ensuring every meal is balanced, healthy and prepared with dignity.
At the same time, we work closely with local farmers, growers' associations and agricultural partners to recover surplus vegetables that would otherwise go to waste. Depending on the season, these vegetables are collected either from packing facilities or directly from the fields before they are left behind.
Recovering this food has a real impact on both food waste and food insecurity, but it also requires significant coordination, transportation and many hours of work from our staff and volunteers.
By supporting this initiative, you help us transform surplus food into thousands of warm meals while ensuring we can continue purchasing the essential ingredients that make those meals complete.
Fondation Mère Sofia
Since 1992, the Mère Sofia Foundation has been working in Lausanne to combat poverty and social exclusion, offering support and welcome to all without discrimination. Through its different structures — la Soupe Populaire, l'Échelle and Macadam — it provides concrete and accessible support, ranging from free meals to social assistance and paid work opportunities. Its low-threshold, pragmatic and human approach aims to meet essential needs, rebuild social connections and help restore a sense of dignity and belonging.
La Soupe Populaire (the Soup Kitchen) is at the heart of our work. Open 365 days a year, it welcomes people every evening as well as at lunchtime from Wednesday to Sunday, with no conditions or registration required. On average, around 250 meals are served each evening and 200 at lunchtime. All meals are prepared on site, largely using rescued surplus food, in a spirit of solidarity and sustainability.
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