Tickets for YOU banquet on sale
File photo Vince Smith of Kennewick thanks Youth Outdoors Unlimited organizers after being presented with his trophy at last year’s YOU. Banquet. Vince and his brother Levi both bagged deer this year on YOU.-sponsored hunts. This year’s event is March 3.
MOSES LAKE — Tickets are now available for the 2018 Youth Outdoors Unlimited fundraising banquet, scheduled for March 3 at the Best Western Lake Front Inn, 3000 West Marina Dr., Moses Lake.
Along with dinner, the evening includes a silent and live auction.
This will be the eighth year for the YOU banquet in Moses Lake, one of four throughout the state in spring 2018. The Moses Lake-based organization provides fishing and hunting trips for youths with physical disabilities or life-threatening or debilitating illnesses.
The YOU website lists 17 young people who went fishing or hunting with the organization’s help in 2017. The program started in 2011, when three kids went on outdoor adventures.
Kids came from all over Washington, some from Oregon and from as far away as Stevensville, Mont., and Fort Worth, Texas. Participants went bear hunting in British Columbia, deer hunting throughout Washington, elk hunting, fishing on the Cowlitz and Columbia. Guides donate the use of their services and landowners donate the use their land.
It’s hunting and fishing, so nothing is guaranteed – not every kid comes home with a trophy. But if a kid gets an animal or catches a fish, professionals donate the meat processing. Taxidermists donate their time to mount the trophy.
But the point of a YOU trip is for everybody in the family to have fun. Sometimes kids get to go camping, and when there’s camping there’s a campfire and camp food. Organizers take care of any special dietary needs.
Kids get the whole hunting and fishing experience, sitting in an animal blind, out on the water in a boat, driving the back roads. Before kids go out in the woods or on the water they go shopping, to ensure they have the proper clothing and equipment.
Some of the kids who bagged an animal in 2017 will receive their trophies at the Moses Lake banquet.
Additional fundraising dinners are scheduled in Spokane March 24, Olympia April 14 and Yakima April 28.
Tickets are $70 per person, $700 per table and $1,200 for premium sponsors. Organizers also are looking for auction items. People who want more information can contact Cindy Carpenter, 509-431-1604 or you@youthoutdoorsu.org; Roxanne Martinez, 206-423-5518, rxmart313@gmail.com; or Katrina Horst, 775-304-4325, kbetes@hotmail.com.
Tickets are available online at www.charityauction.bid/2018YOUMosesLake.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.