Jacksonville Rotary Club to host 16th Annual Valentine’s Day Dinner and Dance

By Benjamin Cox on February 7, 2018 at 5:00am

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and you if don’t have plans with your sweetheart, you do now! The Jacksonville Rotary Club is hosting its 16th annual Valentine’s Day dinner and dance on Friday February 9th.

This year’s theme is “An Evening in Paris”. Brittany Henry and Melissa Painter joined WLDS “What’s on your mind” recently to discuss this year’s event.

“We thought it was fun and romantic and both of those are important for Valentine’s Day. It’s not just for Rotarian, it’s for anyone. It’s also something where you could attend with your friends, a date, spouse, I think we are going to have a really fun party and we are going to have some interesting decorations that make it sort of look Parisian and some food choices that should help with that too.” Panter explained.

Advance tickets are preferred for the event and are $35 per person. You may reserve a table of eight for $250. Everyone who purchases a ticket will be entered into win a door prize. Anyone who attends can purchase a golden ticket prize for $20. Painter explains how all of this is possible through donations.

“This is one of our premier events for the year, one of our fund raisers that we do through out the year and the money that’s donated or raised through the fund raisers is returned to the Jacksonville community to invest in projects that help benefit the community or community organizations. Usually from this event we make about $7,000 – $10,000 and that’s a combination from the silent and live auctions as well as the ticket sales.” said Painter.

The money raised will also help improvements to the Morgan County fair Grounds.In its 16th year, the Valentine’s Day dinner dance has changed through the last few years. Painter talks about how its evolved.

“When I first joined rotary, it was more of a dance band where classical dance, where couples dance all the time. So we have tried a different kind of bands, we’ve had a DJ in the past, last we had such a great reception with this band FunDMC, so we asked them to come back again. They are an up incoming band in the Springfield area so we are really lucky to get them. We usually have over 200 people.” said Painter.

Doors at Hamilton’s open at 5:30 pm. with cocktail hour. A prime rib dinner or a vegetarian dinner will be served at 6:30. The silent auction will begin around 7:30. If you would like to purchase your tickets, call the Jacksonville Rotary Club at 217-371-9525 or go online to www.jacksonvillerotary.org