Clovis East High School Crab Feed

By Valerie Shelton, Editor

Few dining experiences are as fun as cracking open crab legs, smothering the succulent meat within in butter and trying to get the morsels into your mouth without making a mess on anything except maybe your trusty bib.

Clovis residents will have the opportunity to indulge in such a seafood feast at the upcoming Clovis Rotary Crab Feed on Saturday, Feb. 20.

"The crab feed is a great event—it's not just a meal or a fundraiser. It is really an event where everyone in the community can come together and have fun," said Clovis Rotary member Danny Armenta, who is in charge of promotions for the event.

While the crab dinner is the highlight of the crab feed, as Armenta alluded there is more to it than just a meal. Included in the $75 ticket price is entertainment as well as drinks from the no-host bar. Participants will also have the opportunity to bid on silent and live auction items—many of which are provided by local merchants this year.

All the proceeds raised from the crab feed go toward numerous Clovis Rotary charitable efforts and rotary supported non-profit organizations.

Many of the activities rotary supports with the proceeds are youth-oriented. One such activity is the Clovis Youth Enjoy Leadership Experience at Camp Royal, which Armenta said he was privileged to participate in when he was a junior in high school.

"I went to Clovis West and I was nominated to be part of the rotary camp that happens every summer for juniors in high school and I was selected," Armenta said. "It's a weeklong event at Hume Lake. They take about 100 boys at one camp and across the lake, 100 girls at another camp simultaneously. Rotarians come and barbecue and give the students the entire campground for the week and say, 'You're the leaders, lead.' There are speakers flown in to speak throughout the week and the Rotarians are cooking but aside from that, all the cleanup and running around and the activities and structure of the camp. High school juniors do it all. I was a part of that 25 years ago this summer. I remember the last week I was there, a Rotarian came up to me and said 'one day when you grow up and become someone, come see us' and that is what I did. I found an opportunity to get into the club as a member and serve Clovis."

Additionally, the Clovis Rotary supports Interact clubs at five local high schools—Clovis High, Clovis North, Clovis East, Buchanan and Gateway. Students from these clubs serve at the crab feed and tips given at the feed are split five ways and go toward each school's program. Rotary also provides $500 service-based scholarships to multiple students from each campus.

Rotary also supports kids at the elementary level. Each year, Rotary hosts the Joseph Augustino Memorial Spelling Bee at Sierra Vista Elementary School. Joseph Augustino, a local Rotarian who passed away, started the spelling bee and the Clovis Rotary has continued the event, naming it after him. To gear up for the spelling bee, each Rotarian is assigned to an elementary school and supplies third graders with dictionaries they can use to practice spelling words for the event the following year.

Funds also go toward the establishment of the Clovis Boys and Girls Club, the gift shop at the Rotary Storyland and Playland and the Kases for Kids program.

"Kases for Kids is one of those challenging services but we do it," Armenta said.  "Sometimes kids and their parents end up in situations and they end up being pulled out of their home in the middle of the night and oftentimes these kids have a plastic bag for their belongings, so our rotary club sponsors Kases for Kids which provides suitcases and backpacks for kids so during that very tough time they have something besides a grocery bag to put their stuff in."

New since last year, the Clovis Rotary is also supporting the Renaissance Scholars at Fresno State.

"These are students who were raised in foster care, have no family, and managed to get themselves into Fresno State," Armenta said. "We are starting to support them as mentors through finances and direction. They are all on a four-year plan to graduate with their degree. They touched my heart. You grow up, you have no family, at 18 years old 95 percent of them are kicked out of their foster home, even if they are in school still, and somehow they got through that and they had the grades to graduate high school and get into Fresno State, so we're coming alongside and supporting them."

In addition to youth activities, funds raised at the Clovis Rotary Crab Feed also go toward supporting local military families; the Clovis Salvation Army Food Distribution, Christmas stockings for seniors at local senior facilities; Christmas food baskets packaged in conjunction with the Clovis Police Department, the Salvation Army and P-R Farms; the Clovis Botanical Garden; the trails in Clovis; the Fresno State food pantry; and the Marjaree Mason Center.

"All these and more are paid for by this one crab feed," Armenta said. "It is a good time and it is an experience, but it is also a great need that is served every year…There are other crab feeds that pop up and they (the organizations that host them) have their own areas that they serve but the Clovis Rotary does so much with it. We continually give."

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Source: https://www.clovisroundup.com/cracking-crab-with-the-clovis-rotary/