The Day of the Soup was held yesterday at St Mary the Virgin Church in Cardiff where the community came together to combat loneliness as part of The Great Winter Get Together. The event is part of a group of days supported by the Jo Cox foundation with the next event in Cardiff being held this Thursday.

The aim of the day was to fight isolation along with feeding the community. Fr Dean Atkins SSC spoke about why soup was the focus of the day: “We chose` to do the soup because we’ve done it before and we know it works, it’s so good to get families together with the school, its just great for the whole community.”

Pupils from the local primary school came along with their teachers, the plan being to bring children together and then do the same for their parents.

Sian Pontins a teaching assistant at the St Mary the Virgin Primary School spoke about the children’s experience making their own soup: “The children had great fun making the soup, we originally intended to make leek and potato, and celery, unfortunately the staff did not behave themselves and we ended up with leek, potato and celery soup.”

When asked what the day meant to them, one girl responded: “It’s about sharing and it’s about family to bring people together.”

Another girl said: “It’s about getting together to eat soup.”

The Joe Cox foundation is a group set up to combat mental health issues associated with loneliness. It was put together in response to the death of MP Joe Cox who was murdered in 2016.