7th annual Gumbo for Meaux Elementary does it again, breaks records

“TEAM MEAUX did it again, and broke records.
The 7th Annual Gumbo for Meaux Elementary was recently held on Saturday, March 5, 2021 at The Red Barn in Abbeville.
The annual event is a family fun day which included over 30 gumbo cooking teams, live & silent auctions, drinks, concessions, bake sale treats, fun jumps, kids games, face painting & live entertainment performed by some very talented & generous local musicians who donate their time. The bands & musical line up included: The Bayou Beats, The Beau Young Band, Aaron Jay & his band & Alligator Blue.
After seven years of organizing & hosting this event, it is still such a joy to see everyone come out & share their day with us. Our committee of dedicated parents meet year round to plan ahead for the next event & we always pray our fundraising efforts are a huge success. We are constantly blown away by the amount of community support. This year, they have broken the record with the amount of cooking teams that signed up & the amount of gumbos cooked! Our judges had a tough challenge ahead of them but they got it done. Thank you so much to this year’s judges: Brian Marceaux, Wesley LeMaire, Jamie Bergeron & Dr. Dac Pourciau.
On behalf of the Gumbo for Meaux committee, we are so excited to announce we have also broken last year’s record total. All of the numbers have been tallied up & the grand total this year comes to $33, 382.15.
Thank you again so much to all our guests, event volunteers, parents, family, teachers, staff & students! Without your help, none of this would be possible. Thank you also to all of our sponsors, donors, cooking teams, judges, auctioneers & musicians for all of your donations & time! It is truly a team effort and we couldn’t do it without you. Thank you again to Gabe Marceaux & Gerrod Brasseux for an exceptional job helping on the mics for our Live Auction. Special thank you to Monique Lemaire with Monique Designs for an incredible job & for taking care of our awesome Event T-shirts & banners.
Thank you so much to each and every one of you who continue to help. Without you, none of this would be possible.We are always looking for more volunteers, please keep a look out when we begin to plan for our next event. We invite any and all who would like to participate in any way.
The committee is currently gathering estimates, doing research & looking into ways to spend the funds in the most beneficial way to the school & students. A few projects we plan to work on first include replacing the flag poles in front of school, updating the front of school’s landscaping & wall sign, adding a PA speaker/mic system to be used for outdoor events, purchasing a nice school logo rug for the front entry & hopefully we plan to help add a covered pavilion that will be useful on rainy days for all PE classes or to hold outdoor events. It will even include new outdoor bathrooms for all to use.

Article & Photos submitted by: Brook Stelly, Gumbo for Meaux Committee Member