photo by: Dan Coleman

Nechama Tiechtel prepares a pot of soup for KU Chabad's Chicken Soup Express program, which delivers homemade soup to students who are ill or just feeling down.

Natalie Zimmerman was having a rough day last year when a friendly face showed up at her door with a delivery of homemade chicken soup. The University of Kansas senior from Sacramento had been under the weather with a sore throat and runny nose, but knew a dose of “Jewish penicillin” could turn things around.

Like countless others over the past decade and a half, Zimmerman had found herself on the receiving end of the Chicken Soup Express, a labor of love for Nechama Tiechtel and her husband, Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel, along with the rest of the crew at the Rohr Chabad Center for Jewish Life, just south of the KU campus at 1203 W. 19th St.

Through the program, any KU student can receive a delivery of homemade chicken soup and matzo balls when they are sick or just feeling down. Family, friends, or the ill person need only fill out an online form to request a delivery of the soup, made to the specifications of Nechama Tiechtel’s own grandmother’s recipe, and the service is free, although donations are appreciated and help keep the Express running.

photo by: Dan Coleman

Soup and matzo balls for KU Chabad’s Chicken Soup Express program simmer on the stove.

The KU Chabad Center is a local chapter of the global Chabad organization, the world’s largest Jewish outreach movement. “We’re everywhere,” Nechama Tiechtel says of the group. “When people settle on the Moon, we’ll be there first. We serve the approximately 1,400 Jewish students at KU and 500 Jewish families in Lawrence, but really we’re here to bring light wherever. We’re here to teach anyone about Judaism in a way that is joyful, meaningful.”

The Chicken Soup Express is one of the center’s many programs, which also include a weekly Friday night Shabbat service and dinner, a Jewish Women’s Circle and “deep dive” Torah study sessions. Annual community Hanukkah celebrations are signature KU Chabad events, as well. This year, the popular olive press demonstration for kids at the Lawrence Public Library will take place at 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 20, and a large menorah will be lit on the library lawn the next day, Dec. 21, at 4:30 p.m., to the music of Tum Balalaika, a live klezmer band led by Ukrainian war refugees.

Chabad came to the KU community in 2006 with the Tiechtels, when they and their infant daughter, Mina, the first of the couple’s 10 children, arrived in Lawrence. The Chicken Soup Express began a year later, and since that time the Tiechtels and a team of volunteers have been providing an average of “anywhere from two to 20” deliveries of soup per week, Nechama Tiechtel estimates.

These days the soup is often prepared by kitchen manager Daylen Bonner, a recent KU graduate who also helps with Chabad’s kosher hotdog concessions at university athletic events. The soup is made on Fridays in preparation for Shabbat dinners, with servings held back and refrigerated for deliveries throughout the week.

photo by: Dan Coleman

Kitchen manager Daylen Bonner, a recent KU graduate, is responsible for preparing much of the soup for KU Chabad’s Chicken Soup Express program.

Nechama Tiechtel, who at age 5 began helping her Polish-born grandmother make the soup, describes it as “part of her identity.” She eschews ready-made mixes for fresh ingredients: matzo dough balls in a steamy chicken broth with carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, zucchini, celery, garlic, leeks and dill.

“It’s so nice to have that home-cooked meal, when all you have is dorm food and pre-made,” says Paige Harris, a KU sophomore who frequents Shabbat dinners at the center. Harris was with a sick friend recently when Nechama Tiechtel showed up with hot soup as the first snow flurries of winter fell.

“These kids aren’t going to make it themselves, living in an apartment or wherever,” says Margo Herwig of Leawood, whose son, Jordan, is a KU senior. “It’s a very warm, loving feeling to know they look out not just for my child, but for everyone. I’m sure if I had said I really wanted some, they would have even found a way to get it to me.”

That spirit of innovation and urgency was on display during the early days of the COVID pandemic, when KU Chabad delivered Shabbat dinner packages of chicken soup and challah bread to families throughout Lawrence and visited dorms and hotels where students were quarantined.

“We felt we had to create the human connection,” says Nechama Tiechtel of that time. These days, student mental health has become a priority for KU Chabad. “When we see a need, we fill that need. When we bring soup, it’s not just DoorDash. We want to show people you are important, you do matter.”

Update: On Thursday, Dec. 15, a group of donors will be quadrupling every dollar that’s donated to the soup program. Donations can be made online here.

photo by: Dan Coleman

Nechama Tiechtel holds a delivery bag for KU Chabad’s Chicken Soup Express program, which delivers homemade soup to students who are ill or just feeling down.