Souvenir Photo Studio, by Al Bourassa: Saturday July 4, 2015 HoG BBQ

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Saturday July 4, 2015

Happy Independence Day to all our American friends!

Today was the long-awaited Hearts Of Gold BBQ and Country Fair held at the same locale as last year, the beautiful and spacious Caballo Campana.

Over 300 kind folks attended this year's event to primarily provide funds for HoG's Partner Agency Program. This program supports partner organizations' capacities and leadership with administrative services to have a larger community impact and to help bring about sustainable and lasting community change.

The second new goal is to contribute funds to Equidar to help open the very first food bank in the province of Azuay.

This is the first event in 2 years that I was not the Event Coordinator because of my necessary trip to Canada at the critical time. The girls from the HoG office pulled off another successful event with many new wrinkles and heavy challenges. Hats off to them for all of their hard work. I was shocked to see my name listed as a Committee Chair or Member, but honestly I had so very little to do with it.

This year there was a Country Fair set up outside to allow local growers and merchants to display and sell their wares and organic produce. It appears to have been a success.

The Prefect of the Province of Azuay was to be a keynote speaker but he had to step down from his position earlier to allow him to run for the Presidency of the country. We wish him luck as he is one of the more competent and honest politicians that we have encountered. The Vice-Prefect spoke in his stead.

Bill Bushnell was Emcee and Bohdi Kroll was the Auctioneer. The highlight of the night was again a beautiful song performed by the children from the El Arenal Foundation.

Some really magnificent artworks were on display, notably from Miguel Illescas, Eduardo Vega, Gustavo Lopez Moreno, and Holger Zabala.

Typically, nothing ever follows the schedule exactly so the dance time was curtailed noticeably by the Auction which seemed to drone on interminably. Between supper and the fireworks, there was barely an hour of dance time, a real disappointment for yours truly.

Thank you for the delightful company of my tablemates for the evening, Soraya, Alex, Lotis, Michael, Rosa, Oswaldo, and a couple from Alaska.

It is truly unfortunate that Caballo Campana, for the second year in a row, failed to provide a decent meal to the folks who expected a lot more for their $35 ticket. I never heard one good word about the dry meal that was presented. It is so sad that these types of things can affect attendance at future events, even though most folks will know that this was entirely out of HoG's control.

We hope HoG was able to meet their lofty goals once again to enable them to continue with their good works.

I hope you enjoy the photos. I am not going to caption them individually because it would take too much time.
That was the day's excitement, Cheers, Al