9th annual Taste 4 Los Al
returns to Rossmoor Oct. 17

The 9th Taste hopes to top the Great Taste of '08 which was attended by over 3,000 and raised over $277,000.

The 9th annual Taste For Los Al, the single largest fundraising event in the Los Al-Rossmoor-Seal Beach community, will take place on Saturday, October 17, 2009, once again at The Shops of Rossmoor.

Last year's event, which featured the fare of over 40 local restaurants and numerous items for sale at one of the largest silent auctions in the world (the auction tent was 210 feet long (50 feet longer than in 2007) and somehow still seemed crowded. Officially 3,053 locals attended the event and raised over $277,000 for for Los Al HS activities and facilities.

Final count for tickets sold was 3,463 (up from almost 2,800 in 2007).

Of the $277,000 gross, Los Al High School booster clubs directly made over $150,000 from their share of event ticket sales and the silent auction and gear sales. The remainder of the ticket sale revenues went to OUR Los Al which paid the expenses (around $40,000) and the balance goes into a fund to help school facilties, in particular a fund to build an all-weather track. [OUR Los Al now has almost $190,000 and the track team has over $60,000 stashed away. This combined with the district's committment to match those monies dollar for dollar means we now have over $500,000 set aside for an all-weather track.]

We have had almost unanimous approval for again having the event at The Shops at Rossmoor. Yes, there is still room for improvement, and yes, some restaurants (a very small number who were up at the entrance and slammed right at the very begtinning) ran out of food early on (although at least six resaurants were still serving at 9:15 and at least five - Fish Company, Steve's BBQ, Islands, Kobe, and the Long Beach Firemen's Grill were serving almost right up to the end. Anyway, with a growth of over 25% in attendance and dollars raised - especially during these economic circumstances - we must be doing something right.

A couple interesting numbers to throw at you:

• The Original Fish Company served over 70 gallons of chowder.
• Mahe served 2,750 pieces of sushi
• California Pizza Kitchen went through 180 pizzas in three hours.
• Rubio's served over 1500 samples of their fresh Mexican fare, including lobster tacos.
• Marie Callender's went through over 20 prime ribs

Over forty restaurants, some of which spent well over $1,000 on food, labor and decorations, have now done their part to help the community. It's time for the rest of you to do your part and reward these restaurants by giving them some business and thanking them for doing the event.

The 42 restaurants who participated do it for free, partly for marketing value but also as a way to help out a large group of their most loyal customers.