Mark your calendar now for the 3rd Annual Seasonings 4 SOAR! Chili Cook-Off. The event will be held at the American Legion Bingo Hall from 4-7pm on March 10th in Salem Indiana. Fielding a chili team is a great way to get advertising for your business, so round up those chili afficionados in your office/organization and have them start planning. There will be prizes for Judged Best Chili, as well as People's Choice Best Chili and Best Decorated Booth and, of course, bragging rights for a year for the winners.

In addition, we are in need of sponsors for the event. For $2500 for Habanero sponsorship, $500 for Jalapeno sponsorship, $250 for Spicy sponsorship, and $100 or less for Hot sponsorship. Call  Debbie Mildenburger at 812-752-2278 or 812-786-2016 or the SOAR! office at 896-1515 for more information. Event Proceeds go to the Washington County SOAR! Literacy program.

Seasonings 4 SOAR! Chili Cook-Off Registration Form (pdf)

“Thrilled!” was how Marji Morris, Washington County SOAR! director, described her feelings after hearing that her name had been selected as the individual winner in the recent Washington County Community Foundation contest.

The Foundation encouraged people to go to the Washington County Community Foundation (WCCF) website, watch a short video, and then vote for their favorite non-profit. The non-profit with the most votes received $2500. The winner of this part of the contest was Blue River Services.

But there was a second part of the contest. The names of everyone who voted and the non-profit they selected were placed in a container and a WCCF board member conducted a drawing. The winning name in this part of the contest was Morris, who had voted for SOAR!

“Frankly,” Morris said, “I had given up hope of winning when I saw that Blue River and Hoosier Uplands had the lead. They both have many employees and a strong network of supporters.”

Morris continued, “Erica Schmidt, the assistant director, and I had both sent out emails and FaceBook messages as well as mentioned the contest at every meeting we attended. We thought we had exhausted our contacts and didn’t have any chance of winning. We appreciate all the votes we received--and there were many!" Morris said. "There are a lot of very worthy non-profits in our community, and we are grateful that so many people chose SOAR! for their favorite non-profit."

Morris said she didn’t even think about being selected as the individual winner among all the entries, but “it was a wonderful Monday morning surprise—a great holiday gift for SOAR!”

The $2500 grant will help provide literacy instruction for the 30+students in the program.

New students are being accepted at this time. Interested adult learners should contact the SOAR! office at 896-1515 to sign up. All tutoring is done one-on-one and is free and confidential. There are tutors available at the present so there is no waiting list as of the end of December.

"It's never too late to learn to read or to learn to read better," Morris said. "We have had students from 18 to 84! And they have all made progress. I'm proud to be able to provide the organization with $2500 to carry out our mission."