South Knoxville Alliance

Soup's On... again!

All Knoxvillians with an appetite for community improvement are invited to the next Knoxville SOUP set for January 7, 2016. The dinner is being held from 6 to 9 p.m. at Vestal United Methodist Church - 4339 115 Ogle Ave (across from Pease Furniture and King Tut's Grill) - in South Knoxville.

SOUP is an exciting community-focused project sponsored by the South Knoxville Alliance (SKA) and is open to the public. It is a combination of a dinner – part potluck, part planned – and a showcase of proposals for community-based projects from which attendees will choose the winner. It’s where Democracy meets Charity. The SKA hopes to hold the dinners monthly and to award an average of $1,000 per dinner.

For a suggested donation of $5, attendees will receive a simple dinner of soup, salad, bread, dessert – and a vote. There may be a few other surprises on the menu, but it isn’t about the food, it’s about the opportunity to connect with the community, share ideas and bring about some sort of change or improvement.

Diners will hear short presentations from up to four different individuals or groups who have a project idea they are either implementing or need funds to implement. The projects might be a playground improvement, a neighborhood-landscaping project, an artistic project or some charitable endeavor. It might even be an idea about launching a new business with some social-responsibility focus. That’s the exciting part: The proposed projects could be anything – anything that someone has the inspiration to envision, to explain and for which they can win the votes of the audience.

After the presentations, dinner is served and guests have time to dine, digest and discuss the various projects. Then they cast a ballot for the project they like best. Toward the end of the evening, the ballots are counted and the winning project is awarded 100 percent of the funds raised at the door that evening. Winners are invited back to subsequent dinners to report on their progress and success.

More information on our Knoxville SOUP page.

12/31/2015, 12:38 PM