Alsask Drop Inn Centre “Pig Roast Fundraiser”

By Joan Janzen

The members of the Alsask Drop Inn Centre in Alsask are hosting a Pig Roast Fundraiser on Sunday, June 26th. The event will take place at 206 Main Street at 5:30 p.m. A 160-pound pig roasting all night long in a huge barbecue!

Dave Chudyk, secretary of the Drop Inn Centre, said people will be able to smell the tantalizing aroma for miles, and he hopes it will help draw people in. The 6-foot x 3-foot barbecue was custom made by Alex MacRae from Smiley to accommodate a whole pig roasting on a rotisserie.

The pig was purchased from Kindersley Packers, and “Arnold from Kindersley Packers will do the carving,” Dave said. “We also spent eight hours making 80 pounds of sausage in various flavours ... maple, Italian, teriyaki, some with liquid smoke and some without.”

But that’s not all; they will roast a couple of pork loins in a smoker and prepare fries in a couple of turkey fryers. “They’ll be fresh per order,” Dave said. And of course, there will be salad and dessert, “But the big drawing card is the roasted pig.”

The bar will be open for business, and no one needs to be in a hurry to leave because Dave said everyone is welcome to stay until midnight or until they run out of pork. “We’re actually kind of excited about the community coming together,” he said, and that’s obvious because they have been making preparations beforehand.

“We did a trial run last fall and roasted a 120-pound pig; you could smell it for two miles!” Dave said. Now they’re hoping at least 150 people will come to enjoy the delicious feast, and they will even attach a tarp to the building to accommodate the overflow.

The club’s twenty members are excited to host an event! “The last two years have been absolutely devastating; no income came in at all,” Dave explained. They hope to expand their membership base and raise some much-needed funds. “We’re hoping to regain some dollars to keep us afloat for a while. We have such a beautiful building; we sure would hate to lose it.” The funds will be used to pay for utilities, upkeep and insurance. “We put in a demand water heater which helps reduce that bill; it helped us out a bit.”

The Drop Inn Centre is a place where seniors can come together, associate with each other and play a few games, Dave explained. They enjoy playing shuffleboard, pool and card games. The facility is also rented out for local events such as birthday or Christmas parties, which helps generate income. “We hope to expand on that,” he added.

“If the pig roast turns out well, hopefully, we’ll do it every year,” he said. “Next year, we would likely get local people to provide entertainment and expand on the event.”

In the meantime, it will be all hands on deck to help with their upcoming pig roast.