Lake Ridge Community Church is known for exactly what the same says, ‘community’. And if you’ve ever attended one of their services or events, you always feel welcome – no matter what you believe.
On Sunday February 8th, following their Sunday service, they decided to ‘heat things up’ by holding their 2nd annual “You’re Going To Need A Bigger Bowl” chili cook off. From the parking lot of Our Lady of Wisdom school, where the community church holds its services, the delicious smell of chili filled the air.
There were no rules for this competition – use what you like, hot, mild… anything goes! Slow cookers lined the tables with each being numbered, as to keep the chef anonymous – all in the sake of fairness of course.
Now here is a fun fact, did you know that there is an organization called The Chili Appreciation Society International (CASI)? I’m not kidding. (CASI) sanctions over 550 cook-offs annually that raise over $1,000,000 for charity. Corporate CASI, which has the function of sanctioning all of these cook-offs, doing the necessary work to tabulate cook-off results, and putting on the annual Terlingua International Chili Championship, has an annual income of approximately $250,000. Out of this annual income around $60,000 goes to charity.
The International Chili Society (ICS) organizes chili cook-offs as fundraisers. Its annual cook-offs are on a grand scale, with regional qualifying events that attract tens of thousands of participants and a “World Championship” cook-off held in October. The ICS has raised millions of dollars for charity while still awarding hundreds of thousands of dollars to winners.
Hmmm….sounds like something that would be a great event to have in Chestermere.
But, back to the “You’re Going To Need A Bigger Bowl” cook-off – there were 14 entries….but only one could be named the Chili Master! So, who won? Well after the votes were counted, Chestermere resident and active member of the community, Gwen Foat took the title of Chili Master! Congratulations Gwen!
