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 Celebrating
its 21st Anniversary, the Souper Bowl of Caring
program has raised more than $70 million for charitable food
banks and soup kitchens since its inception in 1990. Organizers
hope this year to get congregations from a variety of faith
groups involved
"This
God-given idea that began with one church youth group is transforming
Super Bowl Sunday into the largest youth-led day of giving
and serving in our country," said the Rev. Brad Smith,
a Presbyterian minister who founded the Souper Bowl of Caring
and serves as its executive director. The groups that participate
are asked only to report their totals so that a national figure
can be calculated. All the money raised is given to local
charities by the groups who raise it. This charity is underwritten
by 10 teams in the NFL and other entities.
"Presbyterians
have a rich history and strong tradition of bearing witness
of the gospel to the world,"
Smith said, "The Souper Bowl of Caring is a contemporary
example of that." Smith started the Souper Bowl
20 years ago while serving as a seminary intern at Spring
Valley Presbyterian Church in Columbia, SC.
T.A.P.C.'s
youth, in conjunction with the Mission Committee of Session,
is designating the money collected to go to F.I.S.H. our local
ecumenical caring agency, for their food pantry.
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Mark
your calendar and linger after worship on February 14. Enjoy
a light lunch, beginning at 11:15 a.m., then enjoy the 45-minute
President's Day program which will immediately follow. Ed Davis,
retired American history teacher, will lead this "just-for-fun"
overview of the men, great and not-so-great, who occupied the
Oval Office, for barely a month to over a dozen years, and are,
today, enshrined on Mount Rushmore or noted only in dusty textbooks.