The Hastings Firefighters Foundation’s Booya is right around the corner—much to everyone’s delight! Fire Marshal
Jamie Stevens, who also serves as the secretary for our Hastings Firefighters Foundation, offers the details of the booya.
“This will be our 85th year conducting the booya. It’ll be at Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Church Saturday, September 12. We will start serving outside to take for take-home booya at 10 a.m.
For this booya fundraiser, grab a plastic container with a lid, a gallon Kemps bucket, or a dealer’s choice, as long as the container isn’t a glass container.
“People should bring containers, pots, anything as long as it’s not glass. We won’t—we will not accept any glass containers to fill up your booya to take home. If you do need some extra pails, we do have some pails that would be for sale with the booyah. We make about 1000 gallons. Takes 22 hours, and it’s gone in about four hours. So, roughly by about 2 o’clock, we should be, we’re typically, sold out by then. So, get there early. Lines typically start at 8:30am. We will make sure that we try to get everyone taken care of.
But that’s not all. There’s more fun to be had at this booya event.
“And then festivities inside the church for us take start at 11:00 a.m. So, we will have individual bowls, hot dogs, chips, that sort of thing. We do have some raffles. We have some silent auction stuff. We have a bake sale. We’ll have pull tabs, all that sort of stuff that goes along with this whole booya process.”
Stevens shares about the traditional booya ingredients and what attendees can expect.
“Yeah. So the recipe is the same year after year. It’s a tomato-based soup that has a couple different meats and some different vegetables. We do make a Cajun version as well. It’s a little spicier version, but we do make that as well.”
The cost is $6 per bowl. If you bring a Kemp’s bucket, about 9 bowls go into the bucket, and that’ll run you about $54.
Cash, check, and electronic payment are accepted.
Fire Marshal Stevens explains the funds raised through the booya go back into the community.
“Yeah, so all of the funds go back into the community. So our foundation sponsors two scholarships that are out to our seniors, our graduating seniors. Each [is] $2000 in value. We also donate to Hasting Family Service multiple times throughout the year. We also do some other events and stuff like that. People are looking for donations; they reach out to us, and if we can help, we will. So all the money goes back into the community. It’s just our way of giving back.”
So mark your calendars; the Hastings Firefighters Foundation’s Booya is Saturday, September 12, at Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Church. Get in line starting at 8:30am, and take-home serving begins at 10am. Don’t forget to grab a plastic container, and a wagon might be a good idea too.
[Click the soundbite to listen to the report.]