Dessert Dash

Who says desserts are for the guilty?

There is no guilt when buying dessert means helping local families!dessert dash

Rather than receiving a facility-prepared dessert as part of the dinner menu, Southtowne is bringing in desserts from outside sources, including local bakeries, members’ kitchens, and local supermarkets. Each dessert is large enough to feed a table of eight-to-ten people. The proceeds from the Dessert Dash support our local food box program.

The guests at each table determine how much they, collectively, are willing to pay for dessert. The table with the highest collective bid gets to choose its dessert first. The table with the second highest collective bid chooses second, and so forth until all desserts are claimed.

Our Goal

Our goal is to raise $10,000 with the annual Dessert Dash at this year’s Wine & Salmon Festival. This is what is needed to keep the food box deliveries at their present level.

This year, we will deliver almost 300 food boxes. The need is great as many children are coming to school after a weekend at home really hungry on Monday morning! Think about what happens on long weekends or no school days! Our community partners have expressed so much gratitude for being able to quickly hand a hungry family a box of food.

Each box provides enough staples to feed a family of 4 for a weekend. This way we have contributed to feeding over 1,200 local people; especially families with young children. This year, we are delivering food to Fairfield HeadStart, Fairfield Elementary, Clear Lake Head Start and the Whitaker Head Start as well as Hispanic boxes to Downtown Languages. The approximate cost of each box is $35, which means that we need to raise $10,000 to continue this program at the present rate.

Help Us Continue This Effort

We need you and other Southtowne Rotarians to consider, then volunteer, to provide a dessert for the Dessert Dash. Your dessert can be homemade or store-bought from your favorite bakery. Please do not ask them to provide a complimentary dessert unless you check with Camille Ronzio ahead of time, as we do not want them to be asked multiple times.

Remember, each dessert is essential as we need one per table. If we should have extra desserts they can be auctioned for more money for the program.

Reminders

  1. Have your dessert look as yummy as possible!
  2. If it is on a plate or tray that you want returned, please label clearly and locate it before you leave.
  3. Please bring an index card describing it. Please note if it needs to be refrigerated!
  4. Have it there at 5:30 the night of the event! If you are not attending, just drop it off with another Rotarian who is.
  5. Let Camille know if you’d like to bring more than one dessert.
  6. It should serve 8 (the number of people at each of our tables.)

Procedures for the Dessert Dash:

The specific procedures for the operation of the Dessert Dash are set forth below.

  1. Each table chooses a captain, who prints their name on the bottom of the Dessert Dash signup sheet.
  2. The captain’s job is to encourage everyone at the table to put in enough $$$ to finish in the top five.
  3. The captain passes the bid sheet TO EACH TABLE GUEST or COUPLE for bids using THEIR BID NUMBER.
  4. The captain tallies the Dessert Dash signup sheet.
  5. The Captain chooses a dasher/runner to select their choice of dessert.
  6. Volunteers will collect the sheets, check the totals and organize from biggest to smallest. When completed from biggest amount to smallest, they will be given to accounting and then to the Auctioneer to announce the winners.
  7. As winning bidders are announced a designated “runner” should “dash” to the dessert table and collect the choice dessert for the table, and saunter back to their group.