Chef Tony Nafrady, Carl Tiedemann and Tom Welsh represented Team Tapastrie.
In the early part of February I posted an article on my pending involvement as a celebrity chef in the YMCA of Michiana’s 7th Annual Greatest Chefs of Michiana fundraising event.
The event was February 25, 2017, at the Century Center in downtown South Bend, Ind. There were 11 local restaurants participating in the evening’s festivities. The Greatest Chefs of Michiana has become an annual event for the YMCA with a rather simple, but quite fun concept. Local restaurants volunteer their participation, create a signature food dish and select a local individual to fill the role of Celebrity Chef. The restaurants and the local celebrity team up and compete for the title of Greatest Chef and raise money for the YMCA.
About 470 people showed up at the Century Center in South Bend to help raise money for the YMCA of Michiana.
It was a fun evening with over 470 people in attendance. The festivities started around 7:00 pm with a rush to the food tables to sample the restaurant’s signature dishes. The dishes were creative and quite tasty. I did my best to sample as many of them as I could.
Eating, drinking and dancing were on the menu during the YMCA’s 7th Annual Greatest Chefs of Michiana event.
For the next two and a half hours people ate, drank, mingled and danced to the music provided by the band Blammo. I don’t think anyone didn’t have a good time.
Around 9:15 pm they announced the Celebrity Chef winner and the evening’s donation totals.
They were as follows:
| Name | Goal | Raised |
| Copper Rock & Joe Hart | $10,000 | $16,006 |
| Camp & Sarah Petty | $10,000 | $14,906 |
| Render & Tim Firestone | $10,000 | $13,031 |
| Cafe Navarre & Dr. Zon | $10,000 | $12,313 |
| Uptown & Brett Hummer | $10,000 | $10,745 |
| Simonini & John Miller | $10,000 | $10,150 |
| Morgan’s & Marianne Corr | $10,000 | $9,425 |
| Mango Cafe & Jim Seitz | $10,000 | $8,300 |
| Cinco5 & Mackey & Miles | $10,000 | $5,514 |
| Tapastrie & Carl Tiedemann | $10,000 | $5,098 |
| Sweet Treats & Y Staff | $10,000 | $4,943 |
Kurt Janowsky was on the Cafe Navarre team.
From all aspects the 7th Annual Greatest Chefs of Michiana 2017 event was a success. The $100,000 fundraising goal was surpassed and a total of $111,742 was raised by the chefs and celebrities. With the table sponsorships for the evening, a grand total of $201,000 was raised! That total is up $4,000 over last year’s numbers. A lot of Michiana families and kids will benefit throughout the coming year because of this event.
Thanks to my team members Tom Welsh and Tony Nafrady for all their hard work and allowing me to be part of Team Tapastrie.
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Until next week,
Cheers
Sounds like a great outing for a good cause. Keep doing the good work!