Public artwork to honour Canberra’s ‘Soup Kitchen Lady’

Canberra’s late, great soup kitchen lady, Stasia Dabrowski, will be honoured with a new sculpture as part of the ACT Government’s recognition of significant Canberra women through the public art collection.

Stasia, who died in 2020 at the age of 94, ran a mobile soup kitchen feeding thousands from a corner of Garema Place.

Every Friday night in Garema Place from 1979 until 2018, she served homemade soup, bread and drinks to people in need. She also gave out a lot of hugs.

Stasia had to peel and cook 180 kilograms of vegetables every Thursday to get ready for the Friday night lineup. Stasia babysat at night and cleaned houses during the day to earn enough to buy the ingredients.

Word soon spread, and by 2000, she was providing several hundred loaves of bread and at least 100 litres of homemade vegetable soup to over 300 people each Friday night.

By 2005, the numbers grew to 500 and she was soon helped by grandson Josh Kenworthy who remembers her as a humble soul who shied away from publicity and just wanted to lend a hand.

Stasia’s generosity was eventually supported by a number of Canberra-based organisations, including the Snow Foundation.

The ACT Government has committed $300,000 for an artwork celebrating the achievements of a significant woman by an artist/s who are women or gender diverse/non-binary.

This follows the previous announcement of the commissioning of a statue of the late Honourable Susan Ryan AO, which will be unveiled in the Senate Rose Garden later this year.

A tender process will open soon to engage an artist to create the artwork honouring Stasia. The sculpture will be completed and installed in Garema Place in early 2026.

Arts Minister Tara Cheyne said honouring Stasia was an obvious choice, acknowledging her enormous contribution to many of Canberra’s most vulnerable.

“Stasia Dabrowski’s own life was far from easy,” she said. “Her own early experiences without running water, wood or gas for heat or food in a Polish village before World War II left her with a real desire to help others. Thousands of Canberrans were recipients of that compassion.”

Stasia also suffered the privations of war through first the Nazi and then Russian invasions.

She came to Canberra in 1964 with her husband and young family, although her struggles continued after the marriage broke down and her family faced multiple personal challenges.

She began helping others after a conversation with her teenage son about homeless people here in Canberra, which reminded her of the experiences she’d endured during the war years. Helping others gave her a purpose in life and a way to give back to Canberra.

“No pen could write what I saw in my life,” she said in a 1992 interview with The Canberra Times. “When I see a person who is hungry today, I couldn’t go without doing something about it.”

She won numerous awards and accolades for her charity work, including 1996 Canberra Citizen of the Year, 1999 ACT Senior Australian of the Year and 2017 ACT Local Hero of the Year. She also carried the Olympic torch. But Stasia remained humble about the work she was doing.

“I never keep photos because I am not proud … the soup kitchen is a simple thing, people cooking veggies, nothing special,” she said at the time.

When she died, there were tributes from the Chief Minister down.

Mr Kenworthy said Stasia was always giving and always asking if people needed anything.

“That’s how she was brought up – that you just help people,” he said.

“The statue is something that will be there forever in Garema Place and this way, Nan’s work will definitely be remembered.”

Snow Foundation CEO Georgina Byron said a statue and recognition of Stasia’s tireless work in the community would be a wonderful tribute.

“Our family has much love and admiration for Stasia,” she said.

Ms Byron said her businessman father, Terry, first met her in 2006, and the memories of her would always stay with him.

“She was a true hero whose unwavering dedication to making a difference in helping the city’s most vulnerable was inspiring,” she said.