Knoxville SOUP

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 5:30 pm, collecting a $5.00 donation from attendees. At 6:00, 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.

After presentations, diners will have about an hour to eat, share and connect with others while voting for the project they like best. By about 7:45, 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.

Click below to:

• Submit a proposal
• Support this project as a volunteer

A huge THANKS to all our sponsors and those who contributed to help make our SOUP dinners a success. We especially appreciate Church Street United Methodist Church for providing the beautiful dinner location, our food donors for the wonderful food, and volunteers for their service!

Thanks to Margaret McCall and Raychel Shelton for providing sign language interpreting services for tonight's dinner!

And as always, our emcee extraordinaire, Alan Wiliams.

Please help us thank our supporters with YOUR support of their business!