How $1 Votes Helped 26 Local Teams Power a $100,000+ BBQ & Brew Fest.
By GiveGrove• 5 min read • Published 2026
By the end of BBQ & Brew Fest, the voting page for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Elkhart County read like a directory of local employers. RV makers, a railroad, a hospital, a credit union, a school district and a volunteer fire department all had a team on it, 26 in all. Together they raised more than $100,000 for local kids.
Every dollar of it came from votes. A vote cost $1 on GiveGrove, each team had its own link to share, and all the money went to the Club. The Middlebury Fire Department led the board with more than $21,000, and three companies, Forest River, Lippert and Norfolk Southern, each cleared $10,000.
A festival with two ways to give
BBQ & Brew Fest is the Club's big summer party. This year it landed on August 8 at the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds in Goshen, with local grill teams, craft beer, live music and an alcohol-free kids zone run by Club staff (Froggy 102.7).
Wristbands were sold ahead of time through GiveGrove, and the price covered food, drinks, parking and the music: $80 for adults, $45 for designated drivers and $20 for students. Once online sales closed, wristbands moved to the gate at $90 and $50, with students still $20 and kids 12 and under free.
Then there's the voting. Local businesses and groups enter grill teams, and supporters buy votes for the team they're behind. Every vote costs $1, so a team's vote count is also the number of dollars it has raised, and all of it goes to the Boys & Girls Clubs. Guests also get a ballot with their wristband to crown the Grill Master, but the prize that matters most to the kids is Biggest Club Advocate, which goes to whichever team raises the most.
Who raised the money
Twenty-six teams sold votes, and 17 of them raised at least $1,000. These eight raised the most:
| Team | Raised |
|---|---|
| Middlebury Fire Department | $21,225 |
| Forest River Inc. | $12,235 |
| Lippert | $11,150 |
| Norfolk Southern | $10,257 |
| L & W Engineering Inc. | $7,681 |
| Elkhart General Hospital | $6,505 |
| Interra Credit Union | $4,499 |
| DJ Construction | $3,322 |
Each of those teams reached a different crowd. A company like Forest River or Norfolk Southern can rally coworkers, vendors and customers. A hospital has its staff and their families. A small-town fire department seems to know everyone, from the business owners downtown to the kids who line up to see the trucks at every parade, which goes a long way toward explaining how Middlebury ended up on top.
The Club didn't have to find any of those donors itself. It built one voting page, handed each team a link, and let 26 teams carry it into 26 separate networks. A bit of rivalry did the rest.
The tip jars
Not everybody at a fairground wants to buy a vote on their phone. So there were tip jars around the event, and people stuffed them with cash for their favorite teams.
Every hour, event staff collected the jars and entered the money in GiveGrove as offline votes. The leaderboard caught up, teams saw where they stood, and more than a few went right back out to work the crowd.
GiveGrove doesn't charge anything for offline entries. The cash never touches the payment system, so there's nothing to take a fee on, and the Club keeps all of it. Without that, cash and online votes would sit on two separate tallies, and nobody would know who was really winning until the night was over.
Less work than you'd think
If you have the right teams, voting might be the easiest thing you ever add to an event. Set up the event and a voting page in GiveGrove, add each team, and send every team its link. After that, they do most of the asking. Your job is to cheer them on and keep the cash entries coming so the board stays honest.
One choice to make up front is whether the leaderboard counts votes or dollars. At a Denim & Diamonds gala that runs on GiveGrove, the voting is built around a jockey race. The winner is decided at the event and walks away with a trophy that same night, so a vote count fits. BBQ & Brew Fest sidestepped the choice by pricing every vote at $1, so the vote count and the dollar total are the same number.
Try it at your next event
There's nothing burger-specific about any of this. A golf outing, a holiday-tree contest or a battle of the bands could run exactly the same way.
The teams matter most. Fire and police departments, school staff, local businesses and service clubs all come with people who'll show up for them, and as BBQ & Brew Fest showed, two dozen teams each working their own circle can add up to more than $100,000. Get links into their hands weeks ahead, since most of the sharing happens before the party starts. Plan for cash and put someone in charge of emptying the jars on a schedule. And give the top team a title they'll want to brag about. It costs you nothing.
GiveGrove runs the tickets, the team pages, the leaderboard and the offline entries from one event link. If a few local groups come to mind who'd love to beat each other for a good cause, reach out and we'll help you set it up.
Thanks for trusting GiveGrove with your fundraisers!
The GiveGrove Team 🍋
A Code Works company
GiveGrove makes events and auctions for fundraising easy. Email info@givegrove.com for more info. Click here to sign up for our mailing list.
