Get out your favourite pair of jeans and layer on your favourite jewelry: the Sooke Harbourside Lions Club is hosting its 10th annual Taste of B.C. event, and to celebrate club members have chosen a theme.
What is it? As you might have already guessed, the theme is Denim and Diamonds.
The tasting event takes place on Feb. 3 at Edward Milne Community School, and is a perfect opportunity to get out and mingle.
The purpose of the event is to feature our region’s vast amount of local restaurants, pubs, bakeries, tea rooms, breweries, distilleries and wineries, all while fundraising for different causes within the community.
“It really is a fun event, and it’s great to taste different local food and beverages that you maybe haven’t tried before,” said Judith Lindsay, a Harbourside Lion and advertiser for the event.
When the event first got started, Sooke Harbourside Lions’ current president, Dianne Kent, was fairly new to the club.
“The Taste of B.C. started out as ‘Savoir-Faire’ around 2001. Before that, every year we would hold a pasta night in February, which ended up being a two-night event and was a ton of work,” said Kent in a press release.
Kent had attended a tasting event at her sister’s house where they would pair different types of wine with various foods, and thought it would be a good replacement for the pasta night, so she offered to organize it.
She then bought wine, got local restaurants involved to provide food, had students from the EMCS culinary program served appetizers, and gathered donations from local vendors for the silent auction.
Kent said the night of the event turned out to be more of a party than work, and loves to see how much the fundraising event has evolved over the years.
All proceeds from Taste of B.C. go to local causes, such as helping Sooke’s children and seniors, and all residents’ health, as well as towards programs like the Sooke Food Bank, Meals on Wheels, the Sooke Crisis Centre, Family Resource Centre, and more.
There will also be a silent auction in place, where people will have a chance to win many great prizes such as artwork, gift certificates, gift baskets and even trips, which have been locally donated.
The event runs from 7:30 to 9 p.m., and people can pick up their prizes from the auction from 9 to 9:30 p.m.. This year, the Harbourside Lions are hoping to sell approximately 300 tickets.
Tickets cost $35 and can be purchased at Shoppers Drug Mart, EMCS, and Pharmasave in Sooke.
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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