About Knoxville SOUP
Due to recommendations of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, we have unfortunately cancelled our spring 2020 SOUP event. Our thoughts are with each of you as we work to practice safe social distancing and precautionary methods.
We will post information about our upcoming 2020 dinners when we have details. Thanks for your continued support!
SOUP is a community dinner that is part pot luck and part planned. It is an opportunity for the community to gather, share and connect. It is an opportunity to support projects that, in some manner, benefit the community as a whole. It’s where Democracy meets Charity.
SOUP has been described as:
- a collaborative situation
- a public dinner
- a platform for connection
- a relational hub bringing together communities
- a forum for discussion
- an opportunity to support creative people in pursuit of the betterment of their community
Get inspired! Watch a 2 minute video of a SOUP dinner in progress.
Like the Knoxville SOUP Facebook Page to keep up with the latest information about SOUP dinners.
How it works: We will open the doors at 6:00 pm, collecting a $5.00 donation from attendees. At 6:30, 4 preselected individuals or groups will present an idea or project they would like to carry out. Each presenter (or group) has 4 minutes to inform, impassion and inspire the audience. They then have 4 minutes to answer questions from the audience. Dinner is then served while attendees digest, discuss and deliberate over the projects presented. They then cast a ballot for the project they would like most to fund.
When the evening nears a close, the ballots are counted and the group that has the most votes takes home the money from the door to help fund their project. Democracy meets Charity…
Proposals can be for anything that will benefit the community or society in general. Past winning projects have improved greenways and nature trails, provided exercise equipment for seniors, funded back to school drives, supported other charitable endeavors and even launched a small business with a social focus. There are no hard and fast rules to what a proposal should be, only that someone envisions it, asks for it and the diners vote for it.
Winners are asked to return to a subsequent dinner and share with us the success of their project. Dinners will also feature an artist each month.
Doors open at 6 p.m. with proposals presented at 6:30 p.m., followed by dinner. Diners will have about an hour to eat, share and connect with others while voting for the project they like best. By about 8:15, the votes will be tallied and the winning project will be awarded all donations raised at the door. NOTE: a suggested donation of $5 will be collected at the door. All money raised at the door goes to the winning proposal.
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