100 Cooks for Our Community raises record $552,000 for Dubois County Young Life

Kim Hagan, Old National Community Banking Market Manager and Jasper Market President, presented the check to Dubois County Young Life and the students who attended the presentation at the end of the evening. Photo from 100 Cooks for Our Community Facebook Page. Sharp-eyed observers may note the check is for less than the stated amount in this article. According to organizers, they found additional funds in the tip jars.

Dubois County Young Life will receive $552,000 from this year’s 100 Cooks for Our Community fundraiser held Saturday evening at the Huntingburg Event Center.

Originally launched as Old National Bank’s signature fundraising event in the area, the event features 100 local celebrity chefs serving their signature dishes in a buffet-style setting. Attendees are invited to tip them, essentially voting for their favorites, and those tips go toward the event’s fundraising efforts.

Attendees can try a variety of dishes, everything from regular dishes like U.S. Representative Mark Messmer’s homemade bourbon balls and Dan Fritch’s lobster mac, to other additions like air-fried pasta salad from Chocolate Bliss and Kitchen Essentials owner Ann Knies to Rockfarm Pheasant Chowder prepared by chefs Gene Kuntz and John Toy.

Held biennially, this is the seventh 100 Cooks event in Dubois County, with funds raised increasing each time. This year’s total more than doubles the roughly $210,000 raised two years ago for the Southwestern Indiana Child Advocacy Center Coalition (SWICACC). The over half million raised on Saturday is half of the combined total of $1.1 million raised in the six editions before this one, Nick Stevens, a 100 Cooks committee member, said.

In addition to the huge turnout of more than 600 attendees, Stevens credited an unusually strong slate of live-auction items for pushing the total well past expectations. Those items included:

A meet-and-greet package with Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 19 NASCAR Xfinity Series Toyota team, donated by the Gibbs family, which sold for $35,000 — more than double what organizers expected.
Two sets of banners from the IU college football national championship game, which organizers said had to be specially released from a shredding contract, sold for $28,000 and $25,000.
A tailgate and sideline-access package for the Indiana–Ohio State football game, which sold for $22,000.
Two packages offering a climb of the Mackinac Bridge.
A suite for 18 at an Indiana Pacers game, not including food and beverage.

Kevin Messmer, who has served as a board member of Dubois County Young Life, was credited with securing several higher-profile items, including the championship banners and the Pacers suite. These great items drew a lot of attention, according to Stevens.

But Darin Jordan, the former NFL linebacker who played for the Los Angeles Raiders and San Francisco 49ers and was a member of the 49ers’ Super Bowl XXIX championship team, was a dynamic auctioneer who got the crowd into competitive bidding.

“The man is electric and he’s never met a stranger,” Stevens said. “He’s amazing. He did a great job.”

And, in addition to the live auction, there were roughly 150 items in the silent auction that helped drive up the amount raised.

Organizers also presented the inaugural Mike Elliott Spirit Award, honoring the late Mike Elliott, one of the event’s founding organizers. The award went to the team of Whitney Craig, Missy Krempp and Kelly Schaefer for a candy-and-Jell-O-shot station.

The Top Chef and People’s Choice awards, both for a dish called “Smoking Hot Mess,” went to Alan Kaffenberg and Chad Smith

Dubois County Young Life is a Christian youth organization that currently works with middle school and high school kids in Jasper and Huntingburg. Young Life leaders build relationships with teens first—through clubs, camp trips and small-group Bible studies—then talk about faith once trust is there.

Terry Fogle, Area Director for Dubois County Young Life, said they had applied for the 100 Cooks grant every time it’s been offered over the past 14 years and was honored to be chosen this year.

“I think everything was aligned in our favor,” Fogle said about finally being chosen.

When the amount was announced, he said it was hard to believe.

“I woke up several times in the middle of the night that night thinking, ‘Hold on, what just happened?’” he admitted.

Fogle said the organization had originally hoped for $180,000 to $200,000, which it planned to use as seed money to convert its Jasper staff position from part-time to full-time. They had already taken a couple of steps to expand the organization’s impact, including hiring additional staff for Jasper and seeking a grant to support another individual for Southridge Middle School.

“We were already stepping out in faith,” he explained.

Now, the injection of funding has accelerated the organization’s plans to expand into Northeast Dubois and Forest Park.

“Our goal is to use this primarily for expansion,” Fogle said.

They plan to begin making community connections in those schools to build bridges between Young Life, the students and ultimately, the love of Christ.

“This is a gift,” Fogle said. “We’re going to do our very best to steward it, to help grow our mission and ultimately impact as many youth as possible.”

Young Life currently sends roughly 150 students to camp each year and took 33 people to El Salvador on a mission trip over spring break. Between 250 and 350 students are connected to the program at any point during the school year, Fogle said.

Young Life will hold its own annual banquet Oct. 11, where it plans to invite tables from Forest Park and Northeast Dubois schools as it begins building relationships in those communities.

Fogle credited the event’s success to the community’s heart.

“I think we all know that kids need a support system, that mentors truly make a difference,” he said. “Investing in the youth is, I think, one of the things that it doesn’t take much for people to see that that’s the right cause.”