Food booths raise money for causes

The festival weekend featured lots of food, much of it sold by non-profits in Lawrence Park to benefit various charitable causes, and one group even gave away free jambalaya.
Warren Burlison of Mobile, Alabama, attended the festival with his cousins who were selling food including blooming onions, chicken on a stick and loaded nachos, to help him raise funds to pay for the transport of deceased children back home from the hospital.
Burlison said he has transported children from 28 states back home to be laid to rest. He first became involved in the endeavor five years ago after going to visit a child at a hospital in Houston and met another family whose son had just passed away. The funeral home was going to charge $900 to return him home so Burlison volunteered to do it himself and has continued doing so for other families since that time, he said.
Also in Lawrence Park, Pretty Boys Shrimp, sold boiled shrimp to raise funds for the Fallen Warriors Memorial.
Kentrell Diggs, Stuart Kraemer and Chas Crawford, all of Morgan City, aren’t veterans, but they have family members who are, they said.
They hatched the idea to have the booth while walking at last year’s festival, Crawford said.
Kraemer added, “We want to make the people happy and give them what they want ... They want shrimp at the Shrimp & Petroleum Festival.”
Bob Thomas of American Legion Riders Post 96 in Morgan City said the group was selling barbecue pulled pork po-boys and sausage po-boys, and an array of different sweets and sausage to go to charity.
The post has donated money it raised in the past to go to the families of the shooting victims’ after the January 2013 shooting in Charenton in which Chitimacha Police Sgt. Rick Riggenbach and Eddie Lyons, 78, of Charenton, were killed, Thomas said.
The group tries to bring its food booth to the festival every year, Thomas said. Rain on Saturday slowed the crowd some, but visitors to the food booth picked up when the rain stopped, he said. “Now that it quit raining, there’s probably four times as many people as there was a while ago,” Thomas said.
Prince Hall Masonic Lodge 116 in Berwick was also holding its annual fundraiser with a food booth at the festival, Lodge member Mel Edwards said. The lodge had catfish, cracklins, boudin balls and crawfish among other items on its menu. Lodge Worshipful Master Tim Matthews said Masonic lodges are dedicated to doing charitable work.
Parents and students from Central Catholic High School were helping raise money for school activities by selling hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken strips, which has been a staple at the festival for 42 years, volunteer Joe Autin said. The group also goes to other events such as the Bayou BBQ Bash and softball tournaments, Autin said.
Boyd Parks and his wife, Roxanne Parks, both of Port Neches, Texas, got a seafood platter Saturday at the festival and were having a blast despite the rainy weather, Boyd Parks said. “I did not believe that they had all of the bands with excellent quality, the art show,” Roxanne Parks said. “It’s such a sense of community here.”
Though Lawrence Park is normally reserved for non-profit food vendors, Evelyn Vielman, of Mandeville, was among the vendors Saturday who had to move to the park due to weather conditions, she said.
Many vendors were raising money for non-profit and charitable organizations at the festival, but one group chose to simply give away jambalaya.
A group called Men of Impact gave away jambalaya Saturday at its outpost located at the corner of First and Everett streets. The organization is a group of men from various area churches whose mission is to engage men inside and outside of the church in an ongoing discipleship process, member Steve Miller said.
The group meets at its outpost in Morgan City at the corner of First and Everett streets. Members decided to cook jambalaya to serve to people for free on Saturday at the festival, Miller said. Men of Impact holds small group meetings and also allows other small groups to use its building, Miller said.