They thought that making 50 home-cooked meals would be a good fundraiser for the local food bank — but the Lac La Biche Rotary Club doubled the food order, plating 104 Cornish game hen suppers.
Rotary Club members hosted a Christmas-themed, delivered dinner last weekend to support the Waskaysoo Community Food Bank. The event was held in tandem with the ‘Festival of Trees’ weekend, and saw 13 club members working in the Bold Center kitchen, preparing, cooking, packaging and curb-side delivering the $25-a-plate three-course meals to community members who ordered.
While the workload was hectic, thanks to the increased number of orders after a long year of cancelled fundraising initiatives, it was great to do something, said the club’s executive member Susan Ward.
“We expected 50, we thought if we could sell that, it would be great — but we sold over a 100 … it was a huge hit, we received really positive feedback,” she said of the salad starter, game hen main course and pavlova deserts. “What a wonderful meal it was, the pavlovas were fantastic, the Cornish hens were fantastic, really positive comments overall. We were very surprised at the response we had. A lot of people said that they appreciated that we did something like this—it was a new endeavor for us.”
The club traditionally holds large scale social events like the annual Wine Tasting Night or Lobster Fest at the Lakeland Agricom—that can seat upwards of 180 people, but due to COVID restrictions, they had to find new ways to support the community.
“What COVID made us do is re-think our fundraising events…of course like every other non-profit group, our fundraising was way, way down. We usually do a wine tasting event which we couldn’t do for the last two years, so we decided we would try something different,” said Ward.
Linking the meal event to the Festival of Trees weekend, keeping it in the Christmas spirit, was a good addition, said Ward.
After the group finalizes the overhead costs this week, said Ward, they’ll be able to provide the cash donation to the food bank.
“We’re not sure how much it is yet, we’re just waiting for our bills to come in, but we know we made a pretty good profit.”
Supporting Local
Support from Britton’s Independent Grocer, IGA, and the Liquor Stop assisted the club's fundraiser for the local food bank with good deals on ingredients and some items needed for the elaborate dinner, she said, adding that the support of the club’s volunteer members, as always, was invaluable.
“We’re not a big club, we only have 13 members. But we do a lot for the number of members we have, we have really good membership and volunteers. Our members step up,” she said.
After 17-years of supporting the community with fundraising events, and community-use infrastructure projects like the gazebo and outdoor exercise equipment at McArthur Park, and the disk golf course—in partnership with Lac La Biche County—at the Alexander Hamilton Community Park, Ward said, the loal Rotarians really want to get back into the community full-time.
Upcoming events include memorial tournament
The dinner fundraiser is something the club is considering again for next year. Other events are also ongoing, including a fundraising golf tournament this summer in honour of a founding member of the local club who passed away last year.
“My husband Brydon, who was a charter member of the club, died in 2020, so our club did a small, (invite-only) memorial tournament in his honour last August. We’re going to do an open event this year with a big golf tournament on June 25. It’ll be a big tournament and that will be one of our fundraisers for next year.”
