On Sunday, February 3, the official day of super football when millions of dollars are spent on food and advertising, five churches in the community turned their thoughts to neighbors who barely have a can of soup. A friendly competition took place between the Congregational Church of Booth-bay Harbor, Our Lady Queen of Peace, St. Columba's Episcopal, Southport Methodist and Boothbay Baptist churches. Each participating church invited its parishioners to bring non-perishable food items or money gifts to church on "Souper Bowl Of Caring Sunday." At the conclusion of worship, pre-appointed "counters" totaled up the value of donated food and money gifts. The totals were called to game coordinator, Sue Burge. Over $4,500 was raised and food pantry stock person, Sarah Fahnley, was overwhelmed with the delivery of food and money donations from all five churches!

The participating churches were invited to a Souper Bowl of Caring Celebration on Sunday, Feb. 24, hosted by the Boothbay Baptist Church. Associate Pastor Matthew McNutt officiated the worship-filled celebration. Singer/songwrit-er, Fay Christy and Jeannie Dotson performed special music written by Christy. Danny Giles from Southport Methodist and Connie Moss from St. Columba's Episcopal read scripture passages and Jeff Keyes, President of the Food Pantry board gave thanks for the tremendous ongoing support from our community and now from our "community of churches." Keyes presented each church with a framed certificate of appreciation and awarded a special trophy to the church raising the greatest amount of money during the competition. Game Coordinator Sue Burge said, "Interestingly enough, donations total were very close to one another."

The winning church for 2008 is Boothbay Baptist. The trophy will be kept on display in their church for one year until this event repeats itself year after year on the official Super Bowl Sunday. The hope is that the competition grows and brings greater rewards to the food pantry who offer such an incredible service to our neighbors in need.

Other churches are encouraged to join in the friendly competition next year. Contact Sue Burge at 633-7049 to let her know of your interest in 2009.