Spring Expo will fund patient travel

MEEKER I The inaugural Spring Expo event will be held Friday and Saturday at the Rio Blanco County Fairgrounds in Meeker and is being put on to help raise funds for a local cancer patient.
Event coordinator Stacy LeBlanc said she was thinking of something she could do to benefit the community when she came up with idea to do a fundraiser for someone or some group in Meeker that needs financial help.
LeBlanc said she decided to put on the Spring Expo, which will feature nearly 30 local vendors this year in an effort to help local cancer patient Toni Simmons with travel expenses incurred during the course of her continued treatment.
“Toni is a single mother of two children, ages 2 and 4,” LeBlanc said. “She has huge travel expenses because she has had to and will continue to have to visit different clinics all over the county in order to find the right treatment.”
The vendors at the expo are highly varied in the products they will offer, LeBlanc said.
“The vendors will pay to set up their booths, and that money, along with the drawings, bake sale and silent auction profits, will go to help Toni,” she said. “The vendors will include quite a variety of products, from hair salon products to crafts of all kinds, from photography to jewelry makers and from home products to health and wellness machines.”
The expo is free to all visitors and will be held Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. and on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“My initial idea was to create an event that would allow businesses around here to promote what they sell and to bring the crafts sales and supply outlets together to let folks know what they offer,” LeBlanc said. “I hope to make this a yearly event, and hopefully it will grow with more and more vendors — from yard products to small home businesses, to carpentry products and landscaping businesses — in addition to more crafts types.
“My idea is to focus on a different individual or group next year,” she said. “There are several families in the area who are facing tough situations as well, and we can continue to help a different family each year.”
In addition to the other events, Barone Middle School is doing a bake sale with proceeds to benefit the Simmons fund.
For more information on the event, contact LeBlanc at 970-623-1279.