The 23rd Annual Sunset Beach Chili Cookoff will be held Saturday, September 24th at the Community Center on 12th Street & North Pacific. Cat Reed and Back Alley will bring their crowd-pleasing music to the stage and over 10 Chili teams will compete to have their names inscribed on the Great Chili Pot – the Cookoff Grand Prize.
The event raises money for the Sunset Beach Woman’s Club Scholarship Fund, which has awarded more than 360 scholarships to local residents for over 63 years. Residents of Sunset Beach, Surfside and Huntington Beach apply for the grants.
The past two years, due to the pandemic, the Sunset Beach Woman’s Club has been unable to have the Chili Cookoff. To help make up the deficit and ensure scholarships would continue, the members of the Woman’s Club created new ways to earn a buck, including Pirate Parties, St. Pats Parties and Spirit Baskets.
The Chili Cookoff will expand onto the closed 12th Street, with lots of fun for the whole family, including food offerings from local restaurants, pet adoptions from S.A.F.E. Rescue Foundation and photos. There will be raffles, auctions, chili tastings and a beer & wine garden. Auctioneer & Comedian Tommy Teissere will entertain. Mothers Market at Peters Landing is one of the sponsors. Tickets are $10 each. For more information on the event, call Co-Chairs Cheryl Coleman at 714-717-1728 and Dawn McCormack at 562-343-0218.
The Sunset Beach Woman’s Club was established in 1929 and organized as a non-profit. They purchased a surplus building from the military, had it cut in half and delivered to the current location on Bayview Drive. The women then updated and renovated the building. That historic structure still serves as the Sunset Beach Woman’s Clubhouse and is used by the Sunset Beach Sanitary District, Huntington Harbour Art League and other local organizations for their meetings.
The clubhouse is available to rent for retirements, baby showers, weddings and engagement parties Sunset Beach Woman’s Club luncheons are held on the 2nd Thursday of each month from September through June. To find out more, email SunsetBeachWomansClub@gmail.com.
