The Plant City Daybreak Rotary Club will host its annual Cracker Country Feast Friday, Oct. 24, to benefit the United Food Bank of Plant City and other charitable organizations.
The event will be at George Banning’s home. Banning and three additional Rotarians are on the food bank’s board of directors. The bank’s director, Christine Miller, is also in the Rotary Club.
“It’s a great time, and I enjoy the opportunity to help out the food bank,” Banning said. “We do a lot of other charities too, but the biggest percentage goes to the food bank.”
Banning said the Cracker Country Feast started out as a neighborhood event four years ago, but when it grew, the Rotary Club took responsibility of it. He expects good attendance this year but said he would have to limit it to about 150 people, based on the capacity of his home.
South Florida Baptist Hospital will cater the meal, providing themed menu items such as wild game. There also will be a silent auction, a 50/50 drawing and a raffle for a gift card tree. The gift card tree is a decorative handicraft worth displaying alone, but hanging from its branches are gift cards to local businesses, worth about $900 total.
No feast would be complete without entertainment, and the feast will have it covered: a country band called Little Girl and the Dreadful Snakes, local Rotarians Sharon Philbin and Dan Orrico, and Brett and Brigetta Truitt.
The Truitts, from Lakeland, are the grandchildren of a Plant City Rotarian, and Banning is particularly looking forward to seeing them perform.
“They’re just fabulous,” Banning said. “(Brett) is a songwriter, and I’d say he’s an up-and-coming star in Nashville.”
Several sponsors also donated to the event and the organizations that the Rotary Club has chosen to support.
“We have a $25,000 sponsor, and our Rotary Club presented that to the food bank, because their shelves are really empty,” Banning said.
The bank particularly needs extra donations this time of year. During the summer, it offers a program to feed children because they cannot receive food at school. The increased need in the summer causes a deficit of supplies in the early fall.
Across all its programs, the bank distributed more than 656,800 pounds of food last year and served 32,957 people. The food bank’s goal is to bring residents of east Hillsborough out of hunger and poverty and into a state of self-sufficiency.
In addition to purchasing tickets for the Cracker Country Feast, guests are asked to bring items to be donated to the food bank.
IF YOU GO
WHEN: 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24,
WHERE: 2506 Clubhouse Drive, Walden Lake
TICKETS: $75 each. They can be purchased from George Banning, Doug Updike or any other member of the Daybreak Rotary Club.
CONTACT: George Banning, (863) 660-8979, or Doug Updike, (813) 368-8084
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: Wednesday, Oct. 22
Contact Catherine Sinclair at csinclair@plantcityobserver.com.