Members of the Junior Auxiliary of Columbus give back to the community

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) — The Coronavirus has forced the cancellation of many events over the past few months

One of those – The Junior Auxiliary of Columbus’ 70th annual charity ball – was canceled not once but twice, but that didn’t stop them from taking a chance to give back to the community.

Every year after the Charity ball, The King and Queen of the Junior Auxiliary hold a Royalty Brunch for current and past members to attend.

Since it was canceled this year, the King and Queen decided to open the table to the whole community.

“Since we had already bought the food, we didn’t want to ask for a refund from the caterer because one of our missions is to support small businesses in the community and so we decided to give the food away so that’s what we are here doing today,” said Dr. David Curtis, the King of the 2020 Charity Ball.

Curtis said because of the Coronavirus — they’ve had to cancel many of their events.

“Well we had to celebration ball, which should have occurred 2 months ago and that was canceled,” said Curtis. “So then we redid that date for June, it was canceled again so you can’t have a large gathering of people together. That was the first time in 30 years that the ball has been canceled. And then after the ball there’s the Kings brunch where all of the previous royals get together at brunch and gives toasts and that sort of thing, that was canceled.”

With the help from Lowndes county recreation director Roger Short, they were able to serve that food to their neighbors today at the Soccer complex.

Carrie Martin, President of the Junior Auxiliary, said there’s a reason they picked this specific spot.

“we chose this spot because we knew there would We farmers market people, and also we feed a lot of the vendors today because farmers are hurting too,” said Martin.

Curtis said that they are very thankful they were able to give back.

“These are testing times for us in the community for a lot of reasons,” said Curtis. “And the whole reason that JA exists is to serve the community, and this was just an opportunity for us to extend that whole thing to show the community that we care about them and we care about each other.”

Even though the Junior Auxiliary hasn’t been able to host some of its regular events, they are still developing new projects and plan to continue their clothing and feed to succeed projects.