There are 16 days until the sixth annual Alabama River Chili Cookoff, and organizers are still looking for teams to sign up.

Leslie Free, a member of Leadership Selma-Dallas County Class XVIII who organizes the event each year, said the official deadline for teams to register is Tuesday, Feb. 28, but they will still take teams until the day before the cook off.

“If somebody comes up to us the day before and wants to enter a team, we will never turn anybody down,” Free said. “As of this morning (Monday) we had 17 teams registered, but we’re still waiting to hear back from a few more. That will put us over the 20 mark which will be great.”

Organizers would like to see between 25-28 teams sign up. The fee to register is $50 per team. Each team must have two adults and will provide their own ingredients.

Free said teams are already excited about the cook off.

“They are so excited. Normally the first one to start talking to us even before we send out our registration forms is Vaughan Regional Medical Center,” Free said. “They actually have a cook off within inside their departments and stuff, so they get to choose who would actually be cooking for the Vaughan Regional Medical Center team.”

This year’s cook off, which is scheduled for Thursday, March 16, will benefit the Central Alabama Regional Child Advocacy Center.

“We’re very excited. Every year the excitement is still there because we know that we are raising all this money for a well-deserved local charity,” Free said. “All the money that we raise goes directly back into the charity, and it’s just a project that our leadership team has just continued to do.”

Just like in years past, the cook off will be on Water. Gates open at 4 p.m., and admission is $5 per person. Anyone interested in registering can call Free at (334) 878-4543 or Becky Glaze at (334) 875-2600. For a complete list of rules, visit the Facebook page “Alabama River Chili Cookoff.”