newsminer.com

If you wait until the last minute to get tickets for the May 8 “City Sampler: A Taste of Fairbanks,” you might find yourself left out in the cold.

“Last year, we had to turn people away at the door,” said Eva Rothman, the Fairbanks Resource Agency’s public education specialist. “I think there’s a high interest in it.”

The City Sampler, which has sold out for the last three years, brings a variety of local restaurants and caterers together to offer samples of their best and most interesting fare for an event that benefits the Fairbanks Resource Agency’s Senior Program.

“It’s kind of like a wine tasting, but with food,” Rothman said. “Each vendor gets a table, which is usually set up around the periphery of the room, and they staff it with their own stuff and are free to decorate it however they want, which just adds to the fun. As you wander by, you can just take what looks good.”

The City Sampler will be held Thursday at the Westmark Fairbanks Hotel.

“It’s like a really good cocktail party, where you’re just wandering around, mingling and eating,” she said.

The dress code for the event is casual — the true flavor of Fairbanks. Radio personality Jerry Evans will emcee the event, and the Fairbanks Community Jazz Band will play big band music.

“It’s really not a sit-down affair,” Rothman said. “We want to let people circulate and mingle.”

If the offer of noshing on great food wasn’t enough, there are also door prizes that will be given away throughout the night, including roundtrip airfare for two to Germany on Condor Airlines, an overnight stay at Chena Hot Springs Resort, passes on the Riverboat Discovery, artwork from New Horizons Gallery and Spaulding Interiors, a spa package at Team Cutters, a load of topsoil from Universal Redi-Mix and restaurant gift certificates. There will also be a 50/50 raffle.

Proceeds are dedicated to FRA’s Senior Services programs for people with Alzheimer’s and related dementias. The event will include a booth with information about Alzheimer’s Disease and local services for the elderly.

The FRA program is for people who don’t need the care of a full-time nursing home facility, but still need help in various capacities of life.

“We aim to maintain independence and dignity,” Rothman said. “And our services are not just for the senior, but for their family members as well.”

This is the fourth annual City Sampler.

“It’s a young event, but basically it’s a formula that works, so we’re not re-engineering it,” she said.