Fifty years ago, a group of New Scandia Township women wanted to raise money for town tennis courts. They formed the Scandia Tennis Association and held a fish fry. The next year, they held a brat feed. The third year was tacos – cheap to make and easy to sell – which eventually brought in enough money to build the courts.
Scandia’s annual Taco Daze festival was born.
The festival, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at Scandia Community Center, has grown to include a pickleball tournament; a car, truck and tractor show; a coin scramble; bingo, and a parade.
There also will be a “running of the meatballs,” a fundraiser for Gammelgården Museum, at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at the top of Oakhill Road near Elim Lutheran Church; tickets can be purchased at the Butik (the museum’s gift shop) before and during Taco Daze, and at the museum’s booth in the vendor area at the Scandia Community Center during Taco Daze.
Festival coordinator Janelle Lindberg-Kendrick said a DJ will be playing music from each of the past five decades to celebrate the festival’s 50th anniversary. The person wearing the oldest “Taco Daze” T-shirt at the festival will win a prize, she said.
Over the years, money from the event has been used to pay for fencing around the tennis courts, playground equipment, the outdoor water fountain, outdoor toilets, the new coffee machines in the community center and outdoor signs, according to a history of the event posted on the Scandia-Marine Lions Club’s website.
In 1995, the Boy Scouts took over the making of the tacos, and the Scandia-Marine Lions Club began running bingo.
For more information, go to scandiamarinelions.org/event/taco-daze.
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