Like many locals, Michelle Bodley has fond memories of her time volunteering on Treat Street at the Nevada County Fair.
“My favorite Treat Street food is a funnel cake topped with powdered sugar and strawberries. I spent over twelve years volunteering at the Mount Saint Mary’s funnel cake booth, helping support the wonderful school and connecting with our community. And my favorite job, of course, was helping to run the cash register,” she said. Bodley is Nevada County’s Treasurer-Tax Collector.
Every August, Treat Street comes alive with community, becoming the quintessential community hub and epicenter of the fair. It’s where friends and families meet, catch up, get a bite to eat and share their experiences from the day.
Treat Street serves another purpose. It’s a lifeline for many local nonprofits who subsist on the revenue from their food operations. Treat Street is a significant fundraiser for many community organizations, raising more than $1 million annually for local nonprofit groups and community programming. More than 25 local nonprofits can be found on Treat Street, with some calling it their biggest fundraiser of the year.
For many fairgoers, like Bodley, the highlight of fair week is the food. Up to 100,000 people will be pouring into the fairgrounds this week, according to Nevada County Fairgrounds CEO Andrew Trygg and feeding them all is no small task. Local nonprofits are up for the challenge.
The aroma of corn dogs and burgers fills the air as chatty lines of children, families, neighbors and friends snake along this crowded boulevard, a quaint replica of a gold rush-era town under the pines.
“Well, I have to give a shout-out to our partners at Gold Country Senior Services for their fresh, healthy options, but I also have to say I love the corndogs!” said Carly Pacheco, Executive Director of FREED Center for Independent Living.
This is the first year for Gold Country Senior Services on Treat Street. They will be serving fresh salads and wraps.
Tania Plevel and her twin sister, Jennifer, have been going to the County Fair for 57 years. Her grandmother, Dolores Eldridge, served on the Fair Board for several decades and today the twins always make a stop at the Rough & Ready Fire booth for loaded baked potatoes.
“There’s something so simple and comforting about a perfectly baked potato. It may not be the fanciest fair food, but it’s warm, filling, delicious and something I look forward to every year. Somehow, it just tastes better at the fair,” said Plevel.
Situated between Grass Valley Sportsmen’s “The Loadin’ Chute” beer and wine bar and Job’s Daughters Corn Dogs stand, the Grass Valley Fire Department Association hot dog stand is a popular stop during the fair.
“Every volunteer firefighter has worked here. We’re pretty proud of this,” said retired firefighter Ron Smith as he and his wife Tammy unloaded cases of water bottles from their pickup truck on Tuesday morning.
Beginning in 1983, Smith worked as a volunteer firefighter for 22 years. After retirement, he wanted to stay involved.
“I got too old to carry a hose, so I do this. I was a fireman forever. It gets in your blood,” said Smith.
From Wednesday to Sunday, Ron Smith arrives in the morning to set up, sometimes volunteering two shifts a day because it’s getting harder to find volunteers. He enjoys serving hot dogs, firehouse chili and pita sandwiches to the community.
Money raised from food sales is donated to burn victims, pays for staff picnics and helps pay for the restoration of the department’s old 1926 Seagrave fire engine driven in the local 4th of July parades.
Ron Smith has memories as a kid, growing up in the 1950s and 1960s when the booth was open-air, without a roof. Customers “used to pitch dimes” for bacon or a can of coffee. Back then, he said fair admission cost only a quarter.
He met Tammy for the first time when they were both small children at Tall Pines Nursery School. The two reconnected and married three years ago.
For 65 years, Tall Pines Nursery School has served as a parent cooperative preschool on the Fairgrounds property. Before coming to Treat Street, the school sold pizza out of a window during the fair. Now they sell pulled barbecue pork sandwiches, grilled cheese and coleslaw. The move was a game-changer for the school.
“It’s really hard to get on Treat Street. Now we’re making two to three times as much,” said Kelsey Anderson, School Director. The funding is critical for keeping tuition low for families and provides money for curriculum, staffing and field trips. “ If we didn’t have this fundraiser, we wouldn’t have our school,” said Anderson.
She plans all summer and during fair week, she and her husband, Chris, work long hours, 10-12-hour days feeding the masses. Running this mini-cafe for five days requires an army of volunteers, so Anderson recruits families.
“It’s a big, big job. We have 100 families, and each family commits to two shifts,” said Anderson.
Chris Anderson loves taking a break from his usual gig as a local contractor to become Tall Pine’s “Sauce Master.” He spends all day slow cooking vats of barbecue sauce from scratch made with a special ingredient – root beer – and preparing gallons of dressing to mix with mountains of coleslaw. When he’s not cooking, he has happily become the unofficial Treat Street maintenance guy for other vendors who need a hand.
“I think it’s awesome. We’re all giving back to the community,” said Chris Anderson.
Find the full list of Treat Street Food Vendors and watch a YubaNet interview with Tall Pine’s Sauce Master: Let’s eat! Treat Street is ready for the Fair