Blue Ridge Hook and Ladder will be missing from the West End Fair after 40 plus years

Blue Ridge Hook and Ladder have been a staple at the West End fair for 40 plus years serving fairgoers with delicious food, unfortunately, during their July meeting the decision was made not to continue at the West End Fair and will be missed by fairgoers. Last night (July 17th, 2018) they decided to clean out their stand and move on. In a post on their Facebook page, they posted "We cannot offer a "Thank You!" big enough to cover everyone who has ever helped us out there. We sincerely appreciate every one of you. Thank You. "

Two major factors to how they came to the decision are the cost of meat these days as such that they would have to cut down on the amount of meat served and they vowed to never skimp on the used. As everyone knows the cost of beef has skyrocketed over the years with no relief in sight in the near future. They have cut corners where ever they could over the years as meat prices increased but weighing the number of man hours, and cost of everything associated with the food stand vs the profit made which helps the fire department provide service to the community it just wasn't cost effective to continue.

The other major factor is getting volunteers to man the Blue Ridge Hook and Ladder Stand during the day, most volunteers are older and have jobs that they cannot get time off to help out and to be honest a large majority of the  younger generation is not interested in volunteering these days and as the current pool of volunteers get older they retire. move away or die off and without new younger volunteers we will see an increase in response times from all of our Volunteer Fire Departments and more callouts of other departments to help cover fire and accident calls and a decrease in things like participation in Fairs, yearly carnivals being cancelled and other events that our Volunteer Fire Departments participate in during the year.

There are other changes at the West End Fair this year, one that we know about is that Dotter's London Broil another staple at the fair and will be missed by a lot of fairgoers including this editor has been replaced with Hoffman BBQ. We do not know what other changes have occurred this year, but we plan on visiting the fair this year to check it out and to see how those changes impact the fairgoers and the fair itself.

Blue Ridge Hook and Ladder also want to remind everyone that does attend the fair that the non-profit groups who are there need your donations. Every penny counts to the fire companies and church groups who are giving up countless hours to be there, please help give back to your local community.

Blue Ridge Hook and Ladder have an awesome Archery Raffle ticket going right now,  it's $5.00 per ticket and 5 tickets for $20.00. If you would like tickets call 570-620-8442.

They also have a Chicken BBQ coming up in September, keep your eyes peeled for more info!