More than just a football game was won this past Super Bowl Sunday. The Palmerton community won first place in generosity and the Palmerton Area Girl Scouts think they are pretty super because they helped them with their fundraiser, Souper Bowl of Caring.

The 13 Girl Scout troops in the Palmerton Area Girl Scouts held a fundraiser, Souper Bowl of Caring, and asked shoppers at Country Harvest Family Market at 572 Delaware Ave, Palmerton, to help supply the local food bank, CACPAC (Christian Action Council of Palmerton Churches), with cans of soup. They had representatives at the store on Friday for four hours, Saturday from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m.-3 p.m.Souper Bowl of Caring was a super success and on Monday, Feb. 7, the Scouts delivered 1,210 cans and packages of soup to CACPAC's pantry, located at Blue Mountain Health System's community building at 217 Franklin Ave., Palmerton."It's overwhelming the number we collected. We couldn't have estimated what we would have collected but this is way over anything I could have come up with," said Linda Finley, co-service unit manager of Palmerton Area Girl Scouts, a job she shares with Brenda Wentz.Karyn Thomas, a Brownie of Troop 3112, said she was amazed and her sister, Bethany Thomas, a Junior Girl Scout of Troop 3112 said it gave her a good feeling to know how much they collected for those less fortunate so they could have food.Their mother, Laura Thomas, co-leader of Troop 3112, thought it was an incredible creative idea of holding a Souper Bowl of Caring on Super Bowl Sunday."I'm amazed at the response we got, even with the bad weather on Saturday," she said.Charlie Silliman, CACPAC pantry coordinator said the Girl Scouts did a terrific job."I'm overwhelmed. I wasn't expecting something like this and it will help tremendously," he said.According to Silliman, the pantry receives state funding to help stock CACPAC's shelves and its fiscal year runs from July 1-June 30 with July-September as the first quarter and October-December the secong quarter."We never received anything for those first two quarters until December," he said.On an average for the 2010 year, the pantry serviced 143 families a month, with November and December the two largest. In November, 188 families, (496 people) and in December, 187 families (475 people) received donations. January 2011, the numbers tapered off to 126 families (453 people) and Silliman believes that was because of bad weather that day.Once a month, CACPAC drives to the Stroehmann Pennsylvania Dutch Bakers outlet in Brodheadsville where he receives free loaves of bread and the Lutheran Congreational Services in Allentown donates several household goods to the pantry.