Beach Bash rakes in a haul

When the figurative drum roll ended and the amount of money the 2016 Beach Bash to End Alzheimer’s was revealed, Brian Laures admits he was utterly surprised.“When we closed the books and I saw the number, I was shocked,” the Big Ed’s Firehouse owner said of the $27,120 and change that was raised by the event held on July 30. “I mean I was just flabbergasted. Never in a million years did I think it would be that high.”This year’s Beach Bash was plagued by lower-than-expected attendance, but Laures said those that did come, put their hearts, souls and, yes, their wallets into the event.“And we got a lot of checks sent into us,” he said. “That really helped obviously. The support we got was just amazing.”The Beach Bash to End Alzheimer’s Committee presented a check — the largest in the five years of the event — to the Alzheimer’s Association of Northeast Iowa on Thursday morning.The big monetary year pushed the Beach Bash’s total contributions to more than $92,000.“It was by far our biggest year, and I can’t thank all of our sponsors, all of our supporterss and all of our volunteers enough,” he said. “It means the world to all of us on the committee that we can present that big of a check to the association.”And it also will give the event momentum heading into the 2017 event that will be held on Saturday, July 29.Laures said the committee is already looking at ways of tweaking the event in an effort to boost attendance.For the complete story see the 8/19/2016 New Hampton Tribune.