Ethnic Foods a sellout

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By Lynn Madden

President

On Saturday, Sept. 19 Riverdale District Health Auxiliary operated a food court at the 26th annual Home and Craft Show, sponsored by Rivers and District Chamber of Commerce; our food court and the chamber’s sale were held in Riverdale Community Centre. Our booths offer foods that are traditional in other countries. This year we served approximately 300 people before running out of food; half of our nine booths were sold out in an hour.

Our auxiliary does all the food preparation for this event, from cooking chili, soups and stews, to meatballs, perogies, quiche, curried chicken and rice, as well as cooking good old hot dogs. All these foods have to be prepared on site as it is no longer allowed to make these items at home. Our nurses and hospital staff delight us every year with delicious desserts. 

Our bake table is laden with goodies baked by our auxiliary members and we are so fortunate to have produce and buns supplied to us by Deerboine Colony. Their generosity continues every year and we sincerely thank them! Our members work very hard at our fundraising events. It takes many people many hours to accomplish this success. We cannot do it alone and we call on friends and family to help us.

The chamber looks after getting and setting up tables for the vendors who come with their products to sell. This is a huge job and requires a lot of people to do this heavy work. Eleanor Madden offered to make some phone calls to get some help with this chamber job; thanks to all the guys and gals who came, along with auxiliary members, to help. Other years this job has taken up to three hours to complete; this year we were done in an hour — wow!

Our raffle ticket winners were Barb Plewes ($50) of Rivers, Heather Dyck ($40) of Rivers and Mildred Shaw ($25) of Hamiota. 

Money raised from this event after expenses, as in all our events, will be used to purchase equipment for our hospital and rehab centre. We have also pledged $50,000 towards the new addition! A large portion of that money has already been transferred and the balance will continue over the rest of the year and will be completed by spring 2016. We really appreciate everyone’s efforts of help and support. We can’t do what we do without you.