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Junior Service League will once again host LaGrange’s first and only exclusive community-wide food festival, Taste of the Town. 

“The whole premise of our food festival is that we wanted to create a community-wide event that anybody could come to,” said 2020 TOTT Chair Catherine Rodriguez. “We came up with the idea [in 2017] when we noticed LaGrange didn’t have a food festival. We thought it was a great idea, and it is a great way to bring the community together, highlight a lot of local food vendors and rally the whole community around a local nonprofit.” 

Last year, JSL was able to donate more than $10,000 to the nonprofit Circles of Troup County. This year Taste of the Town will benefit Safe Families for Children.

“Every year, we have several nonprofits that apply to our mini grants, and we always look at prior applicants,” Rodriguez said. “We decided on Safe Families because they are a new organization in LaGrange. Our mission is to focus on education for women and children’s services. So, we saw a fairly new organization really needing community support.” 

Safe Families for Children West Georgia’s purpose is to serve as a host for vulnerable children and to create family-like support systems through a community of volunteers motivated b to keep children safe and together with their families. 

This year the food festival will feature more than 20 vendors from local food companies in the area. Rodriguez said the event is free and each vendor will have food samples out on display and available for purchase. 

Taste of the Town will start at 5 p.m. at Overlook Plaza on Main Street in LaGrange on March 28. 

“We do ask for donations and at the end of the day 100 percent of the donations will go back to Safe Families,” Rodriguez said. “This is something that everybody looks forward to every year, and we are really happy to host it.”

This year’s event will also feature new food vendors and a live band. 

“What we are looking forward to the most is just being able to continue our legacy in the community,” Rodriguez said. “Not just promoting a fun night on the town but also what we’ve been able to do this year as a service league and being really committed to giving back to the community. I think this festival was one of our ways to continue that partnership in the community.”

For more information, email info@jsloflangrange.com or visit jsloflagrange.com/tasteofthetown.