Harlem Swim Team Bakes and Sells 120 Homemade Pies
Share
Tweet
The Harlem Swim Team has always been active in the community, taking part in parades, helping out with various functions throughout the year as well as many other things.
The team relies 100% on its fundraising to be able to host a meet in the summer season, and pay entry fees for swimmers when they attend meets out of town. They also have to pay their coaches and always try to do their best to assist families with travel expenses, including lodging, gas and food for the kids.
Throughout the year they are actively fundraising. They have their annual Valentines Day Dinner which is always a hit and well attended, but they normally have a fundraiser in conjunction with the Montana Seed Show in March.
To make up for the loss of the Seed Show Fundraiser a group of Volunteers got together and decided to make and sell pies. They decided to offer a variety of flavors including: Apple, Triple Berry, Blue Berry, Strawberry Rhubarb, Pecan, Pumpkin, Chocolate Cream, Lemon Meringue and No Bake Cheesecake.
In addition the pies were available for pickup in time for the Easter Holiday. Speculation was high amongst the group as to how things would turn out. In the end it was a huge success.
All told 120 pies were made and delivered by the group. Kellie Rasmussen and her Mother-in-law Yvonne made 101 pies, Kerry Johnson made 13 No Bake Cheesecakes and Lori Kirkaldie made six pies. The group did the bulk of the work over the course of three days.
"Yvonne and I had a good little system and Mark, with his fancy little apple peeler, corer and slicer gadget peeled 90 apples for us! We had a little assembly line, I made all the crusts and would line the pans, Yvonne mixed the ingredients and I put the tops on and in the ovens they went," said Kellie afterwords.
They found out early on that it was going to be a huge success, "I posted a flyer on the Harlem Swim Team Facebook page and we had sold 84 pies in just the first 24 hours," said Rasmussen. "As a result we were a little hesitant to hang any flyer's up. We didn't want to sell more pies than we could make."
The swim team fundraisers and their success are another result of the great community support that is so prevalent in Blaine County. In the end most all of the product were either donated by members of the community or the swimmers' families as well as all the time and effort in organizing the event.
The Prime Rib Valentines Dinner this year exceeded the dinners expected by nearly 30 plates and was such a huge success that the demand for another dinner has led to the Swim Team deciding to have a Mothers Day Dinner with all the fixings as well.
It's a lot of work but the benefits to our local youth are always worth it and in this case the deserving group is the Harlem Swim Team. Follow the Harlem Swim Team on Facebook.
