‘Grillin’ For Girls’ — a night to support local ladies
BY KADIE TAYLOR
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
CHAMBERS COUNTY — The Chambers County Sheriff’s Department is holding the 2026 Grillin’ for Girls event to benefit the Sheriff’s Girls Ranch on Saturday, March 7, from 6 to 8 p.m. EST at the Valley Community Center.
“We have community partners from all over that come in and help in the kitchen, bring desserts and help donate items for the auction,” said Director of the Tallapoosa County Sheriff’s Girls Ranch Eric Strong. “Valley Sportsplex donated the venue, so we have lots of community support for this event. It is one of our main fundraisers for the Sheriff’s Girls Ranch in Camp Hill, and we have great ribeyes that are provided by Kim’s Butcher Block. We will also have rolls, potatoes and salads — all provided by Kim’s Butcher Block and Terry’s Cafe in Valley. We have lots of community support that helps make this happen, and it just helps provide a loving and stable home environment for the young ladies that we care for. It really provides the funds that we need to be able to care for them at a high level.”
Strong said the night will be full of camaraderie, food and fun for a good cause — supporting the Girls Ranch.
“We’ll have a speaker [at the event], she’s a former rancher, she was a house parent at the Girls Ranch and she is now the Director of the Tallapoosa County DHR,” he said. “So we have a great speaker this year that has a lot of experience in what we do on all different levels, but we also have a 50/50 raffle that we do every year. We’ll have a silent auction and a live auction — Mr. Eddie Adams will be our auctioneer again this year. We have at least three guns for our auction, and guns usually do really good. We’ll have the auction, food, fun, fellowship, along with T-shirts and belt buckles for sale. It’s going be a great night of fun, fellowship and just hanging out with our partners.”
Tickets are $30 and they can be purchased online by scanning the QR code on the flier, in person at the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office or at the Tallapoosa County Girls Ranch. Strong said the money raised through the Grillin’ for Girls event will go to funding the work by the ranch to help provide local girls with tools that can help them reach a more positive future.
“The Sheriff’s Youth Ranches was established in 1966 by the sheriffs,” he said. “They saw a need because they were incarcerating young men and young women and then having to incarcerate their kids later on in life. And their goal was to try to get in front of that [multi-generational trend] and try to make a place where local children could change their life path and not follow their parents’ footsteps. [That idead] has morphed into what we do now. We provide a safe, loving and Christian-style home environment for young ladies… We just try to give them an opportunity to succeed. We try to help them with their education, mental health, physical health, dental needs — we try to give them every opportunity that they need to succeed in life.”
Through funds donated by United Way and community support through event fundraisers, Strong said the girls are able to have a safe place to grow up and see how much their community wants to invest in their future.
“As a nonprofit organization, the majority of our funds come from fundraisers and community partners,” he said. “[When the community is] willing to buy a ticket, attend and maybe buy something from the auction — any funds [the community] provides really help us continue our our mission of taking care of these young ladies. But also, even more than the funds — which are important because we have to have money to operate — is the love and the care that the girls feel when people show up. It really makes a huge impact on their perspective of life, on their self-worth.”
For more information, visit Tallapoosa County Girls Ranch on Facebook.
