Saturday, Oct. 4, 2014 marked the second annual “Apple Pie Construction Marathon” fundraiser for the Splash in the Past project, this time held at the Barriere Lion’s Hall.
Incredibly, over 280 apple pies were prepared from scratch, each ready to be taken home to be baked immediately, or placed in the purchaser’s freezer for enjoyment at a later date. All the pies were prepared in a little under nine hours at the hands of local volunteers and were pre-sold at a rate of $10 each with the net proceeds going towards the ongoing fundraising effort for a local Splash Pad.
The 100th Anniversary Committee first heard of the fundraising idea last year from local resident (and district staffer) Nora Johnson. While the committee has taken on a number of successful local fundraisers for the project such as last year’s Moonlight Movie hosted by Interior Savings and Credit Union, the family fun night and PJ party held at the Ridge early last year, a raffle draw, and penny drive to name a few, the apple pie fundraiser has been most profitable to date. Last year pie sales resulted in a net amount of approximately $2,100 for the project. This year was even better with an estimated $2,450 in net proceeds generated.
“The generosity people are capable of utterly amazes me.” says Tasha Buchanan. “From the astonishing donation of nearly 500lbs of pristine Gala apples from BC Tree Fruits Cooperative, the efforts that committee chair Lindsay Arcand went to in order to secure and retrieve that massive donation in the Okanagan (I mean, can you just imagine?!), the freezer space provided along with the discounted price for the supplies needed from Louisa and Ivan Lee of our local AG Foods, to the people who relinquished precious weekend time to help make the pies ... just blows me away. People even sought me out asking how they could help such as Lynn Cramp who kindly delivered more apples to put towards the inventory.”
Pie makers consisted of many Barriere 100th Anniversary Committee members but also community members who reached out independently to help: Lindsay Arcand – committee chair, Liz Gilbertson, Martin and Susan Matthew, Barb Buchanan, Barb McManus, Mike Fennell, Edie Doering, Lynn Wright, Nora Johnson, Colleen Hannigan, Tasha Buchanan, Ashley Salle and Brenda Ewashina, all worked so hard on Saturday. Bev Murphy also went out of her way to help secure the success of the fundraiser and Ms. Jordan Froste also must be thanked for her excellent sales effort.
“Massive appreciation is given to all those who purchased pies and contributed to this fundraiser,” states Tasha, “Thank you Barriere! Looking forward to next year and may we all enjoy the smell of baking apple pie over the holiday weekend.”