Founded in 1986, the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen serves meals to more than 300 people, seven days a week. The Costa Mesa-based nonprofit's mission is to feed a daily nutritious meal to the homeless, the unemployed, the working poor, the mentally challenged, the physically challenged, senior citizens and, most important of all, children. 'Cause it's all about the children. They were among those Someone Cares founder Merle Hatleberg noticed were coming to the door for food when she ran an Orange County seniors' program. Those needy folks did not qualify for meals under that program, so Hatleberg would slip them some food when no one was looking. She went on to pool her meager funds to buy a large pot for the first soup she served to the needy on June 15, 1986. Much has changed since then: 30 people were served that first pot of soup, and Someone Cares moved from local churches to a community center in Costa Mesa to, finally, a former Chinese restaurant owned by the parents of the founders of the Wahoo's Fish Taco chain. And there's now a staff, plus more than 150 active volunteers. Unfortunately, the need has grown as well.
