THUNDER BAY — Roughly 500 people stopped by Dominion Motors and Fox on the Run’s third annual Cooking for the Good event on Friday.
The charity barbecue aimed to raise money to help Evergreen a United Neighbourhood with operating costs.
The 17-year-old charity helps neighbourhood kids with feeding programs, hygiene, arts, homework and offers a safe place after school.
“Just like everyone else's bills, we have to pay our utilities and everything else, so this just goes towards the operating costs to make sure that we could operate year-round,” said Linda Bruins, Evergreen a United Neighbourhood’s executive director.
“We take kids to powwows, cultural events (and) we just try to make a lot of fun for them to go. If their families are unable to afford to take them for (recreation) opportunities, that's something we like to do for them, too.”
Evergreen is located in the Ogden-Simpson area, which organizers at the barbecue deemed a “real area of need.”
Prior to COVID-19, Bruins explained that the charity operated in three sites, including Minnesota Park, which saw around 200 kids a night.
Now, she said they regularly have between 20 to 40 or even sometimes 50 kids a day after school.
With the Cooking for the Good initiative, Bruins said it continues to positively affect hundreds of people because it helps lots of big families.
“There are so many kids and so many families, wonderful people,” said Bruins.
“But with the price of groceries (and) inflation, a feeding program for kids helps so many in the community. Healthy, happy kids who are well fed are going to do much better as we all know.”
The charity barbecue has also been well attended, she added.
“The pre-orders did amazing. I think this has been our best barbecue to date,” said Bruins.
By Friday afternoon, there were around 350 pre-orders at the barbecue.
On Thursday, more $2,000 in donations were also raised.
Bruins said she was excited to find out what the final number is and is beyond delighted to have this “wonderful community support.”
She thanked everyone for the support and the people who have been helping then all through the years.
Ron LeMarquand with Fox on the Run, has worked with Evergreen for around four to five years. He said it was fantastic turnout and probably double than what they had last year, which they’re really pleased about.
“We do look forward. The plan is to do it again next year, so the support's just incredible,” said LeMarquand.
He thanked all the businesses, individuals and everybody who's come to support this cause.
“Stacy and Tyler from Dominion, they've been tremendous supporters (and) tremendous help in taking this to a whole other level, so we're really pleased with this year's event,” said LeMarquand.
Stacy and Tyler Dolcetti, the owners of Dominion Motors have been involved with the fundraiser for a couple of years.
“It's an honour to be asked and to be involved in something that has such a good cause and the support has been tremendous from everybody,” said Stacy Dolcetti, a co-owner of Dominion Motors.
