By Natalie Miller
CP Corespondent
Between 1,000 to 1,200 people made their way to Kings Dominion May 11 for the Hanover Rotary Club’s 35th annual Shrimp & Suds fund-raiser event. Even in the rain families, friends and supporters enjoyed live music and hearty helpings of shrimp under the plaza coverage.
Bruce Peretz, who has been chairman of the Shrimp & Suds event for about six or seven years said the organization was proud of how this year’s event turned out.
“I would say this year was a huge success,” Peretz said.
According to Peretz, about 1,900 pounds of shrimp were eaten at this year’s event.
“Everybody was served, nobody got turned away and we had no leftovers,” Peretz said.
The “suds” for the event were provided by Loveland and Center of the Universe Brewing Co.’s beers. The Shrimp & Suds fundraiser generally raises $20,000 a year for Hanover-based charities, Peretz said.
In the past the funds raised at the Shrimp & Suds event have gone towards organizations like Hanover Safe Place and the Arc of Hanover. In recent years the funds have gone towards the Patrick Henry YMCA, Ashland Open Door, Habitat for Humanity, and scholarships at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College.
Volunteers from a local YMCA and the Department of Social Services for Hanover helped keep the event running smoothly.
Former chairman of the Shrimp & Suds event Jerry Owen was head of the original committee that started the event in 1982. The committee came up with the idea for a shrimp and beer fundraiser in one member’s kitchen.
“It’s been a very successful project for years,” Owen said.
The event has grown from boiling shrimp in members’ kitchens, to cooking the shrimp in the cannery, to some years needing over a ton of the food for the event.
Owen said that Union Bank and Kings Dominion, who are platinum sponsors for the event, have played a large role in the event’s success.
“We are forever indebted to them,” Owen said.
For the past few years the band formerly known as B2B, now called Sand Bar, has performed live music for the Shrimp & Suds event. This group is a Jimmy Buffet-inspired tribute band that plays a range of music from Beach tunes to country songs.
Many attendees at the 35th annual fundraiser had heard Sand Bar at previous Shrimp & Suds events.
“We see some of the same names, and the same faces each year,” Peretz said. “We’ve really got a good following.”
“You can always sell tickets for [Shrimp & Suds] because you can always look people in the eye and tell them it’s the best event in Hanover,” Owen said.
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