Tummy and Soul is quickly approaching, a fun evening of fundraising, community and celebration. This year as we prepare for our sixth annual Tummy and Soul, we have been reflecting on the celebration, and why we do what we do!
At Tummy and Soul, we celebrate Urban Recipe’s growth with gratitude! Our community joins us in making a real difference by raising vital funds to support our food co-ops and mobile pantry. Together, we ensure hundreds of families have food security and belong to a caring community! We gather for drinks, appetizers and conversation, but our origins are deeper than that.
Why Tummy and Soul?
Our annual fundraiser got its name from a co-op led restaurant back when Urban Recipe was the Georgia Avenue Community Ministry.
Tummy and Soul – the cooperative restaurant – was a concept created by co-op members as an attempt to create living-wage jobs for residents of Summerhill, as well as support the costs of running the Georgia Avenue Food Cooperative. The restaurant was decorated with local art, and served a menu of actual home cooked delicacies prepared by co-op members. They would be part of a rotating menu, featuring food like “Mr.s Reed’s Collard Greens” and “Mama Bayne’s Sweet Potato Pie.” The restaurant not only fed the tummy, but also the soul!
The goal was to create a restaurant experience that the community could enjoy, that would be affordable for anyone, and that would respect its staff by offering good working conditions and wages. On September 14, 2004, Tummy & Soul launched! It was the culmination of so much work and prayer. Unfortunately, after just over a year and a few months, the doors to the restaurant closed. A catering business ran for a little longer but eventually that also closed as well as the numbers never were able to line up, and the cost and logistics of operation were simply too much for the cooperative to take on.
This cooperative restaurant, though short-lived, serves as a reminder of the rich history of collaboration and responsibility co-op members take in their food. It is a testament to the importance of collaboration on big goals and striving together to achieve them. Not every goal is achieved and sometimes the lessons we learn and the relationships we forge along the way toward achieving the goal are the most important outcomes we could have. When our annual celebration of growth and gratitude began in 2017 as a community event, the name Tummy and Soul was chosen, as a recognition of the core values of Urban Recipe that remain in place. Urban Recipe does not exist without our whole community. We need everyone. Together, we are able to be bold and try to take on things that each of us individually would struggle to achieve.
The First Tummy and Soul
At our first annual Tummy and Soul in 2017, the focus of the celebration was recognizing Chad Hale, the founder of Urban Recipe (then Georgia Avenue Food Cooperative), and the 25th anniversary of the program. One of the former co-op members, Constance Hawkins, was a folk artist, and her art hung around the art gallery where the event was hosted. A choir of co-op members performed music, displaying the good work happening through Urban Recipe and the possibilities that lay ahead.
Tummy and Soul Today
Now, in 2025, we continue to gather together to celebrate the growth and future of Urban Recipe with our community. Tummy and Soul is an opportunity for co-op members, donors, and partners to spend time forming relationships, celebrating the impact of each person on the food co-op model.
Though it’s a party, it serves also as a platform to share in our mission together – celebrating the triumphs of our co-ops and partners, as well as look toward the next year of change and growth.
Last year, we celebrated our Mobile Pantry partnership with St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church and Dodd Sterling United Methodist Church, honoring how that relationship has fed thousands of families since the pandemic and paved the way for greater growth.
This year, we are excited to honor Decatur First United Methodist Church as our Growth and Gratitude Award Recipient, as they have not only opened their doors to a co-op through our Cooperative Pathway Program, but also are slated to launch another co-op this spring. The Decatur First United Methodist Church Community has stepped up not only in their co-op leadership, but in involvement across the church, from volunteering as a youth group, to sending individual volunteers to support mobile pantry and co-ops, to hosting food drives for Urban Recipe. We are proud to partner with Decatur First UMC and are excited to grow with them this year.
We hope you will join us at Tummy and Soul on Sunday, April 27 at Wahoo! Grill. Tickets are still available, but selling out fast! Invite your friends to learn more about our incredible community with us, in the legacy of our food cooperatives.
Many thanks to this year’s sponsors: Bolst Homes, The Morris Family Foundation, Goldsmith Family Foundation, Asenith Dixon Bell & Andrew Bell, Will Jordan, Judie & Tom Wilhite, and Dematic.
