Nonprofits depend on county fair proceeds to aid good works

The Stanislaus County Fair provides a good time for hundreds of thousands of people over its 10-day run. But the event also does good for thousands more through partnerships with area charities and other nonprofit groups. Following are looks at a few of the cooperative efforts between the fair and community organizations:

The Salvation Army Turlock Corps

Thursday is the Christmas in July toy drive at the fair, to benefit the Salvation Army Turlock Corps. Fairgoers who take two or more toys to the gates will be thanked with two carnival ride tickets from Butler Amusements.

“We’re looking for simple toys, nothing really extravagant – baby dolls, trucks, that kind of thing. The simple toys you’d like to see your children get at Christmas,” said Maj. Debi Shrum.

Especially needed are gifts for newborns through 10-year-olds, she said. Toys should not be electronics or require batteries, and there’s no minimum cost expectation. “We understand that some people who go to the fair save their money for the fair,” Shrum said. “We use dollar store toys as stocking stuffers.”

The toy drive during the fair has been held the past several years, the major said, and has continued to grow.

At Christmastime, the Salvation Army Turlock Corps distributes about 6,000 toys to children in need. The fair drive typically collects 200 to 300 of them.

Donated toys should be new and unwrapped. There will be volunteers at the main gate on North Broadway, the north parking lot gate on Fulkerth Road and the west parking lot gate on Soderquist Road.

United Samaritans

The Turlock-based United Samaritans Foundation has been around 20 years, its volunteers delivering meals to low-income residents and the homeless in Stanislaus County.

For at least 12 and perhaps 15 of those years, the charity has held a one-night canned-food drive at the fair. On opening night this year, fairgoers received $2 off an adult admission with two or more canned items.

But unlike the Salvation Army’s experience of continued growth, United Samaritans reports a drop over the past couple of years. Donations are measured by weight, and a good year brings in about 4,000 pounds, said Barbara Bawanan, executive director of United Samaritans. “Last year, we did 2,000 pounds, which means the bins were about half full. ... This was our worst year – we got only 880 pounds.”

Bawanan could see no obvious explanation for the decline. The bins were outside the gates on opening night, as usual. “Some people say they just forgot,” she said. “Maybe we need more advertising the day of.”

The canned and dry food collected at the fair is used primarily for United Samaritans’ emergency food boxes. The last Tuesday and Friday of each month, qualifying residents of Turlock and surrounding areas can pick up what’s called a three-day food supply. In reality, many families are able to stretch the food further, according to a survey the charity conducted.

United Samaritans provides 260 to 300 families a month with food boxes, Bawanan said. Families are eligible every other month, and in their off months come in for perishable extras such as eggs and bread.

The food boxes contain items such as canned fruits and vegetables, tomato products, pasta, peanut butter and jelly, prepared foods such as Hamburger Helper and Rice-A-Roni, dry beans and rice.

Donations are welcome and can be taken to the United Samaritans office at 220 S. Broadway, Turlock. For more information, call 209-668-4853.

“We appreciate the partnership with the fair to have the food drive,” she said. “Anything we receive is always good – they’re cans we wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Turlock Rotary clubs

Turlock’s Rotary clubs raise a glass – or a bottle, a cup, even an ice cream stick – to good works by selling a variety of beers and alcoholic treats at the fair each year.

The buzz this year is over the Buzz Bars it’s hawking: adults-only, booze-infused frozen treats in six flavors including Blitzed Berry and Mojito Madness. The booth also has brought back its beer floats, adding two new flavors this year: apple pie a la mode and root beer beer.

“Those have been extremely popular,” said Don Gonsalves, membership chairman of the Turlock Sunrise Rotary Club. “Each variety consists of beer or ale and also a spirits mix, ice cream, whipped cream and in some cases a soda.”

The apple pie float, for example, contains red apple ale, Fireball Cinnamon Whisky, ice cream, whipped cream and cinnamon.

The booth, run by members and family members of Sunrise Rotary and the Rotary Club of Turlock, also serves 18 varieties of beer – 16 of them on tap – Barefoot wine and frozen sangria. “On days like we’ve had, that’s a really popular one,” Gonsalves said,

The clubs’ offerings range from beers for $5 to craft beers for $6, Buzz Bars and sangria for $7, and beer floats for $8.

“All the money we raise, we turn and give right back to the community,” Gonsalves said. “We give to the Salvation Army. A lot of it is to youth – the Boy Scouts, school scholarships. ... It’s basically community supporting community.”

Each club has its major annual fundraiser – the sunrise club a crab feed, the noon club an Oktoberfest – but the county fair still provides “a pretty good chunk” of money to Rotary, Gonsalves said.

How does the fair make money from the booth? “We’re a complicated thing for the fair’s accounting department,” he said, saying the fair is paid in a different way for beer vs. the wine, sangria and Buzz Bars. “I’d guess you say they just get a commission on everything.”

Knights of Columbus

As their trailer proudly announces, the Knights of Columbus has been selling linguica sandwiches at the fair for more than 60 years.

“This is our major fundraiser of the year,” said Mark Crivelli, a district deputy with the Catholic fraternal service organization. “It’s a 10-day event, so we rely heavily on the fair.”

The organization pays to have a spot on the grounds and also turns over 22.5 percent cut of its net profits – the going rate for nonprofit food vendors at the fair.

But business over the 10-day run is well worth the price, Crivelli said. “Our group is all about helping our community, so this is not something we’d want to give up.”

The booth is one of the few open during late-morning and afternoon hours, so it’s making money well before the general public ever enters the gates. Between kids and their families showing animals at the fair, fair employees, carnival workers and a good lunch crowd from nearby Turlock Irrigation District, the booth sometimes makes more money from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. than during the evening. In those later hours, of course, it has to compete with a much greater variety of food and beverage offerings.

Crivelli’s brother, Kevin, said the money raised at the fair goes to a variety of the Knights’ programs, including scholarships for graduating high school seniors, the Sacred Heart Church Festival, a free-throw contest and the church’s Memorial Mass and Breakfast. The local chapter also pays into programs run by its parent organization.

VFW Post 5059 Ladies Auxiliary

Mary Baxter, a past president of the Ladies Auxiliary, has been involved in its hamburger booth at the fair for 30 years and believes it predates her by at least an additional 20 years.

“We are famous for our burgers – that’s why we have long lines. I think we have the longest lines at the fair,” she said. Fair staff “get on us sometimes about the lines” because they block walkways.

The fair is the major fundraiser for the auxiliary, which uses the money to benefit the homeless, church programs and other local causes. “Of course, our main thing is the veterans,” Baxter said. The auxiliary donates to veterans locally and also has “certain quotas we send to veterans groups every year.”

The women fill Christmas boxes for veterans and serve “quite a few” dinners a year, she said. “Anyone’s allowed, and they’re always free,” Baxter added. “That’s the great thing about our auxiliary – because we do so well at the fair, we can afford to do that. Other auxiliary groups do a lot of fundraisers and still have to charge a small amount for their dinners.”

This story was originally published July 15, 2015 at 4:38 PM with the headline "Nonprofits depend on county fair proceeds to aid good works."