St. Baldrick’s Back For Another Year

Thousands of dollars are being raised in the Illinois Valley to fight childhood cancer.

St. Baldrick’s events are planned today at Jeremiah Joe’s in Ottawa and tomorrow at Senica’s Oak Ridge in La Salle.  The fundraising goal for Ottawa is 50 thousand dollars and 29 thousand dollars in La Salle.

Muffy’s Tap in Ottawa will hold another St. Baldrick’s fundraiser Marcy 26^th.  They hope to raise ten thousand dollars.

The final fundraiser of the month is March 30^th at the Mendota Knights of Columbus.  Organizers hope to raise five thousand dollars.

Bobblehead Contest Continues For Area Competitors

Second round voting continues for 99.3 WAJK morning man Jon Shap and NewsTribune sportswriter Erik Hall.

Both won first round matchups last week in the Peoria Chiefs promotion benefiting charities called “Media Madness”.  Shap is trying to win for Cops 4 Cancer while Hall is in it for Ladd Baseball.

Either Shap or Hall needs to get the most votes in five different rounds to win 500 dollars for their charity.  If they finish in the final four, their charity gets a hundred dollars.  If Shap or Hall win it all, they will also have a bobblehead made of themselves that will be given away to fans at the August 5^th Chiefs game.

Voting for round two goes until Sunday night.  You can vote as many times as you want.

Go to PeoriaChiefs.com to vote.

Wine Festival Needs Food Vendors

Despite hesitation by some city council members, plans are moving forward for the inaugural Ottawa Two Rivers Wine and Jazz Festival.

The Ottawa Visitor’s Center is accepting applications from area restaurants and catering services for vendor sites at the June 4^th and 5^th festival in downtown Ottawa.  Especially being sought are vendors able to provide food that compliments a glass of wine.  The vendor fee is 200 dollars.

At a city council meeting earlier this week, Finance Commissioner Dan Aussem said the city “shouldn’t be in the business of planning festivals”.  Aussem is concerned that the event could be washed out or fail to make a profit saying he doesn’t want to risk 70 thousand dollars in taxpayer money.  He and Commissioner Dale Baxter both said they wished the city was just host of the festival and not the prime funding source.

Mayor Bob Eschbach says he’s confident the Illinois Grape Growers and Vintners Association will put on a successful event and that barring bad weather, the festival will at least break even.  The estimated cost of the festival is 72 thousand dollars with the winery association giving the city nearly 12 thousand dollars up front.

Federal Disaster Declaration Approved

Area counties will get a helping hand from Washington, D.C. to deal with costs of February’s snowstorm.

The federal government has approved Governor Pat Quinn’s request asking that 60 counties be declared federal disaster areas.  Bureau, La Salle and Putnam counties are all included in the disaster declaration.  Local counties will get up to 75 percent reimbursement for snow removal costs, debris removal and repairing damage to government owned buildings.

Local and state government expenses for the Groundhog Day blizzard are expected to top 64 million dollars.