Chocolate lovers unite for a cause
Like chocolate?
How does tables filled with chocolate confections, chocolate chip cookies, brownies and chocolate cake all there for sampling sound – and just before Valentine’s Day?
Planned Parenthood is hosting its 18th annual Pro Am Valentine Chocolate Festival at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Bullen Center, 43 South Main St., in Logan.
Professional as well as amateur chefs will be entering their chocolate creations into an auction, which will be voted and bid on. The money raised by the auction will go to Planned Parenthood.
“This Festival isn’t like other fund raisers. It has a personality,” Nancy Sassano, a member of the Chocolate Festival committee, said.
The most popular chocolate creations of the past festivals have been a rabbit in a magician’s hat sculpted completely of chocolate, and a chocolate cookie mountain with meringue inversion in recognition of last year’s record breaking inversion, said John Weeks, a member of the Chocolate Festival committee.
The event begins with a silent auction when the chocolates are available for guests to sample and bid. The winners of the silent auction then move to the live auction, which will take place at 8 p.m.
The amatuer participants who enter often make two batches of their confections – one for the sampling and one to be sold in the auction.
There is a variety of deserts entered along with chocolate, such as cookies, cakes, pies and brownies, with cake usually being the most popular, Weeks said.
Last year, there were 46 amateur and eight professional chefs who entered into the auction and through the 500 people who participated, $13,200 was raised. The record amount raised by the festival is $15,000.
More than 35 businesses and individual sponsors have made donations toward the live auction, raffles and prizes, Sassano said,
“The festival is a fun and unique way to help people support Planned Parenthood, which is an important cause to be supported. In the past we have had amazing community support and we really appreciate it,” he said.
Tickets for the Festival are $5 and will be available at the door.
Entry forms and tickets for the Chocolate Festival are available from the Planned Parenthood Clinic at 550 N. Main St or by calling 753-0724.
For any questions concerning the event, visit their Web site at http://www.thechocolatefestival.org.
-kap@cc.usu.edu