Third annual Food For Kids “Love Your Neighbor” Fundraiser Banquet to be held Nov. 1

The third annual Food For Kids “Love Your Neighbor” Fundraiser Banquet will be held Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, at Les and Jim’s Lincoln Lanes, 1208 N. Center Ave. in Merrill, beginning at 4 p.m. This year’s banquet will include a smokehouse buffet dinner, drinks, guest speaker and MAPS school psychologist Amy Van Alstine, raffle baskets, door prize drawings, and more.
The banquet is one of the primary fundraisers supporting Food For Kids, a program that provides weekend meals for children in Merrill. Currently, the program serves six area schools: Pine River School for Young Learners, Kate Goodrich Elementary, Washington Elementary, Trinity Lutheran, Prairie River Middle School (grades 5 and 6), and St. John Lutheran. “By the end of the 2024-2025 school year, Food For Kids will be serving 252 students each week, which is an increase of 34 students compared to the previous school year,” said Food For Kids Program Coordinator Terra Holdridge.
“Food For Kids spent nearly $47,000 on food for our program last school year,” she said. “That is why this fundraiser must be a success.”
“Food For Kids relies on community donations and grants, and this fundraiser helps fill any funding gaps the program may have,” Holdridge said. “Without a successful fundraiser, the program may have to shut down during the school year. Without our community, there would not be a program.”
Holdridge said the first banquet in 2023 sold about 100 tickets and raised $10,840. The 2024 banquet sold out and raised $19,480. “I am praying for another sellout year!” she said.
Tickets are available for purchase at Saint Stephens UCC, Nicolet Bank, and on the Food For Kids website, foodforkidsmerrill.org. For more information, contact Holdridge at 715.536.7322 or foodforkidsmerrill@gmail.com.