J. Lohr Wine Tasting With Dinner At Nellies Southern Kitchen

What a night! Just a few weeks ago we were invited to a four course wine dinner hosted by Nellie’s Southern Kitchen in Belmont NC featuring wines by J. Lohr Vineyards and Wines of CA. She-crab soup, fried green tomatoes, melt in your mouth short rib for an entrée and a dessert to die for! Each course was matched with a perfectly blended J. Lohr Wine! The perfect meal indeed! Thank you to Nellies Southern Kitchen for allowing us the opportunity to raise awareness for Type 1 and Type 11 diabetes.

Our MC for the evening was the delightful Shane Elks from the Black Star Theatre Company of Belmont NC. They even brought a photo booth which was so much fun as you can see by the pictures below. With Shane’s help, we were able to raise thousands of dollars through our Silent Auction. Anchored in a Cure provided over 10 fabulous prizes to bid on and I have to say, the Authentic Wood Fired Pizza Oven was a huge hit! I’ve posted their contact info below in our photos should you want a second chance at obtaining one of these fabulous outdoor pizza ovens. Another top winning prize was an aerial flight for two over Charlotte from Fly Carolina. Such an awesome prize! We are grateful to all of the folks that donated items to our auction. A few more honorable mentions are Belmont Specialty Foods, Denise Price Thomas, Carol Carstarphen, Windows with a View by Jacquie and J Lohr Vineyards. We were especially blessed to have the owners of Revel Wear (a specialty clothing company for insulin pump wearers) fly in from Idaho and provide us with over $1200 in gift cards and clothing! We are so grateful to everyone that helped us raise over $5000 for the prevention, treatment and ultimate cure of diabetes.

We were blessed to have Miss Grace Sheppard share her heartfelt Type 1 diabetes story. She was such an inspiration to us all. We thank you Grace for your courage and for giving us hope.

After enjoying one of the best dinners we could ever hope for, I was asked to thank our guests for supporting Anchored in a Cure’s efforts to eradicate diabetes. They were a warm receptive audience and it was my hope to provide just a little insight of life with diabetes. Then the icing on the cake came! The guests and I were greatly surprised by the presentation of a check for $1000 to Anchored in a Cure Foundation by Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Jonas Sr. I was so deeply honored. Nellie’s Southern Kitchen and The Jonas’ have been tremendously supportive of our nonprofit and we are so very grateful for everything! I’ve never worked with another business that shares the community spirit of Nellie’s Southern Kitchen. We are grateful to them beyond words.

I hope you enjoy our fun photos and we also hope you will be able to join us when we tour Muddy River Distillery in Belmont next month. Yes! Samples will be available. Keep watching our events page for a date! All ready on the fall schedule is our annual Treasures for Children. This will take place Sept 10th. More details will follow in the coming weeks.

Thank you to everyone for making the wine dinner/silent auction such a tremendous success! Again a special thank you to Mr & Mrs Kevin Jonas for your support for a cure for diabetes and for reaching out to your community in such a positive way! Lastly, a very special thank you to Jackie Grindstaff, events coordinator, for making every dream come true! You make having every event at Nellie’s a true pleasure.

Patricia Erickson