When musician Kelley Hunt was growing up, her mother could always be counted on to bring cheer to those who needed it most. She’d offer her humor, a few kind words and, perhaps most strikingly, her soulful, bluesy voice, at the drop of a hat to anyone who needed it.

Anywhere, too, Hunt recalls. Mary Sue Wade, who still sings at age 86 — though not professionally, as she did for years at church and various Emporia venues — once sang in their neighborhood’s tiny grocery store for the proprietor, who was battling a serious illness at the time. People were moved to tears by the performance, then went on with their business.

“Even when she was a housewife with four kids, if she could lift somebody up by singing to them, she’d do it,” Hunt says of her mother, whom she regards as her earliest musical influence. “She’d go to that person who wasn’t well or whatever, and she’d sit by them and sing to them. And I thought, ‘That’s how you serve somebody with what you got.'”

It’s how Hunt plans to serve her community Saturday, when the Lawrence-based, internationally touring singer-songwriter makes a hometown appearance at Liberty Hall to benefit Just Food. All proceeds from the “Valentine’s throwdown,” appropriately dubbed “Dance of Hearts,” will support the Douglas County food bank. Guests are also encouraged to bring donations of food items.

The gig — which will also feature special guests The Fat Brass Horn and The Mighty Kel-Tones — is Hunt’s first Lawrence performance in “quite a while,” says the roots and R&B singer. For nearly two years now, she’s spent most of her time on the road promoting her critically acclaimed 2014 release, “The Beautiful Bones.”

Saturday’s set list should be “a big chunk” of that album, she says, along with old favorites, a generous dose of love songs and a handful of new tunes she’s been trying out for audiences lately. Now, after a slew of shows in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last month and yesterday’s gig in Omaha, Hunt says she’s excited to return to the town — and the venue — that has served as “home base” for so many decades.

“There’s so much talent and creativity in this town. There really is,” says Hunt, who came to Lawrence as a teenager to study music composition at Kansas University. “But it’s a good place for me to come home to, and I don’t play here as often as I used to. I’m glad to be home.”

Growing up in Emporia amid a musical family, Hunt’s education began long before her college days. Her parents, both musicians, would bring her along to traveling performances (classical, Broadway, whoever happened to be in town) at Emporia State University. In the summer, she’d ride her bike down to outdoor concerts. As a high schooler, she’d often sit in on her older sister’s gigs at area clubs — after her parents talked it over with the owners, of course.

But Lawrence, Hunt says, was something else entirely. It was here that Hunt saw Bonnie Raitt perform live for the first time — or rather, she heard Raitt, sitting outside Hoch Auditorium during sound check because she couldn’t afford tickets — and began applying Raitt’s “strong, graceful” presence to her fledgling career.

“They took you there because they went there,” Hunt says of the female vocalists, among them Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson and Ruth Brown, whom her mother seemed to embody back home in Emporia.

Mary Sue Wade taught her daughter: “Be generous with your gift.”

It’s what she’s choosing to do now for Just Food, because, as far as Hunt’s concerned, “In lieu of writing a personal check, which I would love to be able to do, I can do a lot more for more people where I live with my music.”

Tickets for “Dance of Hearts” range from $25 to $40 and can be purchased at www.libertyhall.net or at the Liberty Hall box office, 644 Massachusetts St. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the show starts at 8 p.m.