In eight years, the Baton Rouge Epicurean Society (BRES) has grown from a couple of guys tossing around ideas at Gino’s Restaurant to an organization that has given back thousands of dollars to the Capital City community.
BRES executive director Renée Dugas-Molbert says 2014 was the organization’s best year so far, raising more than $170,000 from its events—Fête Rouge and CrawFête. Dugas-Molbert added that the live and silent auction totals from Fête Rouge doubled 2013’s totals, earning $37,000 for Girls on the Run South Louisiana
The money was donated to local childhood health, nutrition and culinary programs, including the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank’s BackPack Program. Other programs that benefited from the Epicurean’s Society’s events included local ProStart programs and scholarships for Baton Rouge students who attend LSU, Nicholls State and the John Folse Culinary Institute.
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“We spread the love to different organizations,” Dugas-Molbert says. “All the proceeds stay within our Baton Rouge area.”
As 2014 winds down, Dugas-Molbert is optimistic that BRES can grow more in its ninth year. She’s already working on the society’s springtime beer and gourmet crawfish tasting event, CrawFête. She also says Fête Rouge will stay at L’Auberge Casino & Hotel Baton Rouge, which hosted the event for the first time in 2014.
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“We are working with them to make [Fête Rouge] bigger and better,” she says.
For more information on BRES, click here.