By STEPHANIE BRUMFIELD / Staff Writer

MONTEVALLO – On the night of the Montevallo Christmas Parade, the members of First United Methodist Church in Montevallo will continue their 20-plus year tradition of hosting a community-wide soup supper, where community members can buy home-cooked vegetable soup, cornbread, a drink and dessert for $6.

The annual soup supper will be held Nov. 21 from 5-7 p.m. in the church fellowship all. Everyone is invited to attend.

In addition to home-cooked meals, quart jars of soup can be purchased for $5, and cakes will be auctioned off every 15-20 minutes throughout the evening, with all proceeds going to local missions.

Jan McKinnon, church member and soup supper committee chairperson, said the supper was started by the First United Methodist Women and has been held for more than 20 years. In recent years, though, the whole church has become involved in cooking soup and helping organize the event. The supper usually has around 70 people in attendance, she said.

“We use it as a way to have a fun time on the night of the Christmas parade and to invite everybody in town to visit us,” she said. “It’s always fun to have just a variety of people form the town coming in. It’s just a real nice evening.”

Proceeds from the supper will be used for mission-based projects in the church and in the community. In the past, proceeds have been donated to the Boys and Girls Club, Shelby Emergency Assistance and various other projects.

“One of the things we have used the money for in the past has been to provide a scholarship for a needy child so they can go to our preschool program for a year,” said McKinnon, who said the scholarship is worth more than $1,000 per year.

Montevallo First United Methodist Church is located at 861 Middle Street in Montevallo.

For more information, call the church office at 665-7535.