The Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry is confident taco enthusiasts will be willing to walk for their dinner during the fifth Taco Crawl event in downtown Aurora from 4 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 14.
Tickets for the Taco Crawl, which will raise funds to aid the pantry, are on sale for $40 at mwfoodpantry.org/taco-crawl. A total of 200 tickets are being released to the public for the event. Officials on Saturday said there were already 155 tickets sold.
Scheduled venues for the event at this point include Alice’s Corner, Flo’s 2AM Tacos at The Venue, Island Boy Food, McCarty Mills Taproom, La Chicanita Bakery, La Garrafa Ice Cream, La Quinta de los Reyes, Tamales Plus and Tavern on Broadway.
Organizers said the first crawl was launched back in 2019, followed by a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. Other crawls were held in 2022 and 2023 which included one year when a spring and fall crawl were offered, making the upcoming event the fifth Taco Crawl overall.
Cynthia Gamboa, who serves as director of development for the food pantry, said the fundraiser is designed “to raise funds for summer programming.”
“Because of this event, we can then fund and support the local school programs that are run through the city of Aurora’s youth programs,” Gamboa said.
According to Gamboa, this year’s Taco Crawl will have a total of 10 stops.
“Six of them are back from last year and four of them are new,” Gamboa said.
According to a press release from the food pantry, participants at the Taco Crawl “will be treated to unique taco stylings along with tamales, Mexican street corn and artisan pueblo-style ice cream created by local chefs.”
There will also be empanadas and mini-sliders available during the event, organizers said.
“We do have a little bit of a mix. We’re not just pigeon-holed into tacos, but we do offer through the restaurants a little more variety,” Gamboa said.
The press release notes that check-in for the event begins at 4 p.m., May 14, at event host Society 57, 100 S. River St.
New this year, DJ Dro and Pro Music Waves Ent. will entertain guests at an after party from 7 to 10 p.m. at Society 57. Dessert, dancing and raffle prizes await guests returning from the crawl, event organizers said.
The financial goal of the event this year, organizers said, is to raise $10,000 for the food pantry.
“Between the first few years, we’ve been able to raise anywhere from $4,000 to $6,000,” Gamboa said. “This year, we’re targeted to raise about $10,000. The reason we feel this way is this year, we’re offering more with each ticket sale. In previous years, we only included a limited number of T-shirts, but this year, we’ve made a commitment to all the participants to give them both a commemorative T-shirt, as well as a raffle ticket that is included in the pricing and therefore, we’re able to raise more funds.”
Sponsorship and restaurant opportunities are still available, with applications due by May 1. For information, contact Gamboa at 630-897-5431 or email cgamboa@mwfoodpantry.org.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
