Luncheon featured 45 restaurants

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Community members stood in line by the dozens waiting to load up a combination plate of food on Friday at the Chef Extravaganza .

Held at the Isabella Community Soup Kitchen, 621 S Adams St., the event had about 80 people lined up outside its doors before the event had even began.

“We’ve had a long line since 4:30,” Isabella Community Soup Kitchen Director Genny Sobaski.

Once inside the doors of the soup kitchen, participants moved through an assembly line of flavored wings, tacos, tamales, spaghetti, egg rolls and pizza.

Sobaski said in previous years, they have raised about $2,000. Buffalo Wild Wings, Bob Evans, Central Michigan Catering and Max & Emily’s are among the participating businesses.

Larry Collins of Alma said he has come since the event began.

“This is like my home away from home here,” Collins said.

Many people at the event had been there before. The Chef Extravaganza is one of several yearly events the soup kitchen facilitates.

“This is usually one of our main fundraisers of the year.” Genny Sobaski said. “We’ve been very blessed.”

Of the 45 businesses that donated food for this event, several of them have also been supporters for multiple years.

“We’ve been for 10 or 11 years,” said Max and Emily’s owner Tim Brockman, whose business donated cheesecake.

Some of the volunteers even came from Central Michigan University to help during this event.

“We wanted to do the Chef Extravaganza because we thought it was a cool idea,” said St. Clair junior Sam Mullens.

metro@cm-life.com