Submitted Photo Delaney Smith, Lexi Clark, Heather Cymbaluk and Kat Howard, from left, all with Companions for Children, are promoting Caesar Fest, a major fundraiser for the organization.

Caesar Fest is a local tasting competition event including live music, a car show, plant cutting bar, hotdog bar, and more. All proceeds from the event benefit Companions for Children.

The fourth annual event will be held this Sunday in downtown Minot from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

“Companions for Children is a local, youth mentoring organization,” said Heather Cymbaluk, executive director at Companions for Children. “We are a local nonprofit. We serve Minot in a 20-mile radius.”

Companions for Children is similar to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America but differs in that it serves the local community.

“We essentially recruit. We screen, train and match up volunteer mentors with kids in our community,” Cymbaluk said. “We have a few different programs right now. Some of them are community based and some are school based.”

Companions for Children currently has 150 matches total across its programs. One of its programs, Lunch Pals, pairs children with mentors to meet up during school lunchtime twice per month, with the goal of supporting students who might benefit from having another adult role model and someone to connect with in their lives. Lunch Pals is operating in seven Minot schools.

“That’s why the proceeds can help us continue to grow and expand to serve more kids in our community,” Cymbaluk said.

There will be three awards presented to winning competitors at Caesar Fest, which include not only bragging rights but trophies as well. The categories are Best Caesar in Minot, First Runner Up and Most Creative Caesar.

For “The Best Caesar in Minot,” the voting is weighted 60/40. Sixty percent is for taste and 40% for creativity. For most creative Caesar, the score is based entirely on the creativity points.

“People can also put comments in there and we take all of those scores and comments and we give it to the competitor afterwards so they can look and see if they want to change things for next year,” Cymbaluk said.

Awards will be presented at the end of the event at 2 p.m.

The competitors are preparing for 300 potential guests. Caesar Fest was completely sold out last year.

Hotdogs and bratwursts are included in the event ticket price and guests can eat their fill with a variety of toppings.

The event will be held in front of the Blue Rider with the street cordoned off. People are welcome to bring their dogs.

The local band Night Drive will be playing a variety of tunes and jams. There also will be a car show, meat raffle, silent auction and plant cutting bar.

“We’ve done the plant auction for a couple of years now, but we’re just kind of adding onto it with the plant cutting bar,” Cymbaluk said. The plant bar will include plants available for purchase as well as plant cuttings and baby plants. Guests can purchase pots separately and mix and match the plants they would like to buy.

Many of the plants and plant cuttings were donated to the event by community members to help raise funds for Companions for Children.