For more than thirty years, the Community Soup Bowl has benefited from the generosity of hundreds of individuals and groups from the Tuscaloosa community.

People have stepped forward to cook, to serve meals, to wash dishes, to paint and clean the facility, to landscape and cut grass, to donate food and money . . . to do whatever was needed to keep the Soup Bowl operating and fulfilling its mission.

In the beginning (1984), soup was the usual fare of the day, made in a church kitchen and transported a few blocks to a rented house. In 1987, a house with a kitchen was rented and on-site meal preparation, with an expanded menu, began. In 1998, the Lord blessed the Soup Bowl with a new building, the site still used today.

Until 2005 the Soup Bowl only served meals during weekdays. But people are hungry every day. In 2005, six Sunday school classes became the first weekend teams, taking responsibility for buying, preparing, and serving meals on Saturdays and Sundays. The weekend teams have grown in number and now include many churches, Sunday school classes, youth groups, college students, clubs, businesses, and organizations throughout Tuscaloosa County.