The United Way Valero BBQ Showdown sponsored by Valero had another record-breaking year.
This year the event sold over 4,000 tickets over the course of two days which included Cajun Night on Friday and the BBQ Showdown on Saturday. Over 50 teams participated in the competition preparing various food items. Preliminary figures show the event raised $450,000 between ticket sales, sponsorships and other donations. All of this money will stay local with the United Way of South Central Oklahoma.
Vic Rhodes, Vice President and General Manager of the Valero Ardmore Refinery, gave the figures and shared some total numbers raised over the course of the event’s 11-year history.
“For the last three years, we set records each year, and every one of them was a complete surprise,” Rhodes said. “Last year we announced $375,000 on this stage, but it ended up at $396,000. So, we said that’s a big number, let’s go ahead and set the goal this year for $400,000.
“In the last 11 years this event has raised just under $2 million for the United Way of South Central Oklahoma. In the last four years it’s been over $1.2 million.”
He pointed out none of that would have been possible without the help of the event’s sponsors and the volunteers who bring it all together.
“We had over 130 volunteers from the United Way agencies and United Way organization,” Rhodes said. “Additionally, there was roughly 70-75 Valero volunteers who came in over the last couple days to make this event happen. It really was a volunteer effort to really pull this off and treat the thousands of people who came through the gate.”
Bryce Chitwood, Executive Director of the United Way of South Central Oklahoma, thanked everyone who came together to raise so much for the organization.
“Our mission is to mobilize the caring power of the community to improve people’s lives, and there is no better example of mobilizing caring power than the work this Valero team does every single year to put this event on,” Chitwood said.
He said the goal for this year’s fundraising campaign will be $1.1 million and pointed out the money raised by the Showdown gets the campaign almost halfway there.
“We’re so excited to raise a bunch of money this year to support our five-county community. We support more than 29 partner agencies, and they work 45 programs to support our community. They are out there doing the hard work. We’re the one’s raising money to make sure they can do exactly what our community needs.”
