Posted on 27 October 2012 by laha1016
By Christina Ledesma
La Habra Journal
A couple hundred people sampled home-cooked food, exchanged recipes and enjoyed conversations alls for a good cause.
They filled the La Habra Community Center Sunday to take part in the annual fundraising event, Gourmet Guys to Raise “Bread” for the La Habra Children’s Museum.
For the past 20 years the non-profit organization, Friends of the La Habra Children’s Museum has organized this event to help raise money for the museum. On average, the event raises about $30,000 to $40,000 to help fund educational programs at the Children’s Museum.
The event consist of amateur chefs in the community such as city officials, veterans, doctors, Lions Club and Soroptomist Club members, and all presented their best dishes at the event to be judged by professional chefs, food critics and restaurateurs.
La Habra Mayor Tim Shaw was present and handed out medals to this year’s Gourmet Guys winners. Shaw believes it is very important to help support fundraising events like this in the community.
Jack Gregg, who was dressed up as Gorgeous George with the La Habra Lions Club, said that he has been participating in this event for 12 years; this year his group dressed up together as wrestle mania and won 1st place for the best group theme.
“The proceeds go to the Children’s Museum, and I think it’s really a good cause,” he said. “The Lions Club likes to support everything in La Habra. We just started with this event two years ago and will be here for many years.”
Roberta Jenkins, who is a member of the board and a coordinator for the committee, came up with the event idea 20 years ago.
“We were looking for an idea to try and raise money as a fundraiser each year for the museum. And so the idea was that we would get men to cook. I had participated in something similar somewhere else, to get the men to cook and then give them medals for their presentation, and for their cooking and the food they were making.”
Jenkins said that this fundraising event has become a tradition and people in the community look forward to this event each year.
“This is our major fundraiser each year for the museum. We’ve been trying for a long time to get people very interested and because it’s a real fun event. We have anywhere from 75-100 cooks. We have had as many as 125 guys who are cooking. You can’t taste that much food so it’s really fun to walk around and look at the different presentations. And the guys are very particular about the food and the way everything looks and how it’s put together.”
