Local first responders fundraising events Saturday

For a fourth year, the Young County Serving Our Servants is hosting a benefit for first responders injured or killed in the line of duty. This year, the event will be held alongside a concert from the Young County Rural Fire Departments which will provide funding for a communications tower for first responders.

The YCSOS event from noon to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28, will be a barbecue lunch at the HDH Pavilion in Olney. The lunch will be $10 per person and $7 for children 10 and under. First responders and their families will be given wristbands at the event and they will be provided a meal.

“The Rock Bottom BBQ and his Smokin’ Steer group from the high school are cooking the barbecue for us, so that will be really good,” Young County Serving Our Servants Secretary Sheri Widner said.

Later the same evening a dance concert featuring Jake Hooker and The Outsiders Band and the Chris Shackelford Band from 7 p.m. to midnight was scheduled. The Chris Shackelford Band had to pull their performance from the event due to personal reasons. Matt Wayne and Company was named as the replacement band. The cost of the concert will be $25 per person or $40 per couple. The funds from the concert will go towards a communication tower for Young County responders.

Tickets will be available at the event, but can also be purchased at the Graham Conventions and Visitors Bureau, Graham Sale Barn, J&N Feed and Seed, Fort Belknap Water Supply Corporation, United Supermarkets, Olney Chamber of Commerce, Olney Enterprise and Guaranty Abstract Company.

Widner said the organization started their fundraising event in 2016 after local concerns were raised regarding first responders in Young County.

“In 2016, there was the Dallas sniper shootings and they needed funds immediately for the families like for hotel, gas and things like that,” Widner said. “And so, we had a prayer vigil here on the square for that, for our officers and first responders and for the Dallas officers and after that there was a group of people who thought it would be a good idea for us to have our own fund here on the chance of something like that happening in Young County.”

The group decided to host a fundraising meal in 2016 in which they invited first responders and the community to the American Legion Building in Graham. The event changed into a chainsaw carving competition for the next two years, with each chainsaw carver auctioning off a piece they carved that day. In December 2018, members of service organizations in Graham presented YCSOS with a check for over $13,000 from the Southern States Chainsaw Carving Championship.

For the rest of the story, see the Wednesday, Sept. 25 edition of The Graham Leader.