By Roger Tausig
Rotary Club of Orange
Roger Tausig
As many local residents know, for the past 20-plus years Rotary Club of Orange has organized the annual Lobsterfest, a summer celebration that attracts hundreds of lobster lovers from Orange and surrounding towns.
It is a major undertaking requiring substantial organization and planning as well as many skilled people to prepare and set up the site and cook many hundreds of lobsters, steaks and all the trimmings for our hungry guests. It has been an event that became a tradition in Orange and one that many repeat customers anxiously await every year. We estimated that over the 20 years that we have held the Lobsterfest, we have earned between $250,000 and $300,000 to fund the numerous philanthropic causes that we support.
In evaluating the success of the event over time, club leaders noted that attendance has steadily waned in recent years, suggesting that it may have run its course. Attendance and revenue from the event was not meeting our goals and, with prices for lobsters rising, it was hard to bring in enough sales to justify the amount of effort that goes into executing such a major project.
So because it was a major fundraiser for our club we decided it might be time to rethink the format of our midsummer event. In a brainstorming session we held in the fall, we resolved to take a different approach. Instead of focusing on eating lobster, we would shift the focus to an event offering a suite of activities and entertainment that would be enjoyable for the whole family, young and older alike.
The event is tentatively scheduled for July 22 and will be renamed Summerfest. Our plan is to create a setting that will include something for the whole family to enjoy rather than simply eating crustaceans. Our goal is to offer a wide variety of activities that can be enjoyed by children and adults in order to attract families.
We plan to have live music, numerous games for children, contests in backyard sports such as cornhole and relay races, making it a truly family-oriented day. And of course, no event of this type would make sense if we didn’t feed our guests. There will be various scrumptious treats, such as hamburgers, hot dogs and other traditional summer fare. We won’t completely abandon our lobster theme; we plan to offer lobster rolls as well. This food will be easier to prepare for our volunteers, taking some of the stress out of the event.
We are looking forward to redesigning our summer event. We have added quite a few members to our club this year and will be counting on all our members to pitch in to make this fun(d)raiser a success.
Having said that, we can never have too many Rotarians to work on this and our other projects. If working on community service projects while enjoying the camaraderie of fellow club members appeals to you, I encourage you to consider joining Rotary Club of Orange. We offer a great opportunity to do personally rewarding work, make new friends and be a part of something special. Visit our website at rotarycluboforange.org to fill out an application, or just reach out to me at 203-605-5151.