Saturday, April 16th the Kenai Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center (KCVC) hosted the 32nd annual beer wine experience with this year’s theme being “Adventures in Neverland.” Over 300 attendees turned out for the event at the Old Carr’s Mall and dined on imaginative Neverland delicacies provided by Kenai Catering and enjoyed libations from Kassik’s Brewery and wine provided by Bear Creek Winery and Odom Corporation. While Kenai Chamber & Visitor Center COO Johna Beech kept who she would be dressing up as a guarded secret, with the Vegas odds weighted toward the evil Capt. Hook, Beech surprised the odds makers by coming as Wendy Darling herself, “The staff and I were talking about this back in November when we were looking for something fun, fairy tale-ish and whimsical without doing a Cinderella thing. Then someone said well do you believe in fairy’s and well of course so we went with Neverland and everyone ended up loving the theme,” she said.
According to Beech this year’s “Fairy Dust” sponsor otherwise known as beer glass sponsor was Glenda Feakin of Remax Realty. Remax won the winning bid for the 2017 head table! This year’s wineglass sponsor was Peterkin distributors. “We had a live auction, silent auction, wall of guns sponsored by Sportsmen’s warehouse, scavenger hunt with round-trip tickets on Ravn aviation as the grand prize, a hidden treasure map with Holland America cruise up for grabs, walk the plank, and treasure chest sponsored by Alaska USA among all the evening’s childlike activities. Jason Avigo of MJ Plumbing for the third time won the trip to Mexico, “That was a happy thought for sure and a big Thank you to KO entertainment for Emceeing Good Morning Neverland and Steve Lemme for being the auctioneer. Main St Tap and Grill handled the fairy dust for our No Host Bar! And thank you to all our sponsors, donors, attendees, volunteers, KCVC Staff and Board of Directors for another amazing, fun event but most importantly for standing behind the Chamber events and activities like the 4th of July Parade and Christmas Comes to Kenai. These are folks of your community that make those events happen with their time and financial support, making our town a real life Neverland,” said Beech.