Taste of Texarkana draws record crowd for food bank, organizers say
Harvest Regional Food Bank says the 33rd Taste of Texarkana drew a record crowd and raised a record amount for hunger relief in southwest Arkansas and northeast Texas.
Harvest Regional Food Bank says last week’s 33rd annual Taste of Texarkana drew a record crowd and raised a record amount for hunger relief in southwest Arkansas and northeast Texas.
More than 30 restaurants, caterers, bakeries and beverage vendors set up booths on the arena floor at the Four States Fairgrounds on Tuesday, Oct. 13, handing out samples from 5 to 8 p.m. while student jazz bands from Pleasant Grove and Texas High played. All proceeds go to the food bank’s hunger-relief programs.
“We had a record crowd with a record setting amount raised for hunger relief in southwest AR and northeast TX!” the food bank posted on Facebook Sunday. It has not released a dollar figure. Organizers had planned for nearly 2,000 guests. The 2024 event raised more than $60,000, Tiger Times, the Texas High student newspaper, reported that year.
A night of samples
Booth space is free, but each vendor agrees to bring at least 2,000 samples. The final vendor list included Juanito’s, La Fogata’s Bar and Grill, Naaman’s BBQ, Blue Ember Smokehouse, El Chico, Chili’s, Newk’s Eatery, Walk-On’s, Bubba’s 33, Texas Roadhouse, Raising Cane’s and Julie’s Deli. Cake Boutique, Cakehouse, Cold Stone Creamery, Blue Bell Creameries, Dirty Dough, Gelu Italian Ice and Swell Sweets, with its Kool-Aid pickles, covered dessert. Starbucks, Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages, Eagle Distributing and Mel’s Fine Wines handled drinks, and culinary students from Texas High and Liberty-Eylau cooked alongside the professionals.
Vendors compete for awards that include Best of Taste and Crowd Favorite. The food bank had not announced this year’s winners as of Tuesday. Last year, Blue Ember Smokehouse won Best of Taste and Newk’s took Crowd Favorite, according to Kicker 102.5. Both were back this year.
Tickets were $25 in advance and $30 at the door, $10 for children 6 to 12 and $50 for VIP seating. Children 5 and under got in free.
Dr. Ly and Aaron Gaylor again presented the event. Presenting sponsors were the Patterson-Troike Foundation, Ledwell Enterprises, Wholesale Electric Supply Co. and the Cabe Cook Foundation. Cooper Tire, TEXAR Federal Credit Union, Robbins Toyota, BankOZK and State Bank were main-course sponsors.
“Taste of Texarkana has been a crowd favorite for over three decades,” Camille Coker Wrinkle, the food bank’s CEO, said before the event. “Thanks to generous sponsors and community support, everyone is able to come together for a family-friendly night of fun, to support our mission and help end hunger in our community.”
Where the money goes
Harvest Regional Food Bank is the Feeding America food bank for Bowie County, Texas, and nine Arkansas counties: Miller, Lafayette, Hempstead, Little River, Sevier, Howard, Pike, Nevada and Columbia.
It started in 1989 as a food-rescue group. “We started with three people in a van,” Wrinkle told KSLA in 2024. Today it works out of a 25,000-square-foot building on East 19th Street in Texarkana, Arkansas. In 2025, it distributed more than 4 million pounds of food through about 100 partner agencies, and it reaches more than 55,000 people a year.
The food bank’s programs include:
- More than 35 mobile pantry distributions.
- Backpack and school pantry programs on more than 40 campuses. The food bank says it feeds more than 2,000 children a week through backpack, after-school and summer meal sites.
- A Senior Food Box program that provides monthly food boxes to low-income seniors.
The need is wide. The food bank says one in five people in its service area is food insecure, and one in four children faces hunger.
“Both Texas and Arkansas have some of the highest rates of food insecurity in the nation, especially in children under the age of 18,” Wrinkle said at the food bank’s Hunger Action Luncheon in September. “These are our neighbors; the people we live with, work with, and attend school with.”
The food bank opened a commercial kitchen and education center in December 2024. In June, volunteers picked two acres of donated corn in Little River County for more than 90 pantries. Last December, it held a citywide holiday food distribution at four sites on both sides of State Line. This fall, it passed Brookshire’s gift cards to dozens of partner pantries, including $1,000 for UAHT’s Iron Horse Pantry.
“What a lot of people don’t realize is that only a few dollars can go such a long way,” board president Susan Robbins said at the September luncheon.
To donate or volunteer, visit harvestregionalfoodbank.org or call 870-774-1398. Event information is at tasteoftexarkana.com.
More photos from the 33rd Taste of Texarkana
