The Mountain House of VanAntwerp Hall is throwing the first annual Sausage Festival to help raise money for local food pantries.

Residents of Mountain House will be grilling hot dogs, Italian sausage and different kinds of bratwurst. For every brat they sell, they will be donating a brat to Salvation Army’s food bank in Marquette. Their slogan is, “Buy a Brat to Help a Lot.”

Mountain House’s government the Caveman Council came up with the idea to do this because they felt uninvolved on campus and wanted to make a difference in the community.

“We haven’t done much all year, and we really wanted to do something that would help other people. We also wanted to start a tradition for our house,” said Andrew Miller, communications chair for Mountain House.

Nick Cirilli, resident adviser of Mountain House, is very proud of his residents wanting to help the Marquette community. Cirilli has been primarily guiding the process and making sure his residents are on track, but for the most part the students are putting it together.

“The residents are very excited for this event and they show it through their hard work,” Cirilli said. “We recognize that there are people struggling in the Marquette area and we want to do our part to help in a fun way.”

The Salvation Army of Marquette is very grateful for the event and is in need of donations from anyone, especially around this busy time of the year when donations seem to be lacking.

“We’re headed into full time for food pantries,” said Captain John Arthur, senior pastor at Marquette’s Salvation Army. “The donations will go a long way to help the community out. We have a lot of people that come to us for food, especially meat. Our pantry goes a long way trying to help their needs.”

Whether it is money or food, The Salvation Army accepts either donation.

“This is a wonderful event that they are putting on for our food bank,” Arthur said. “We can use all the help we can get.”

During the festival, Radio X will be DJing and there will be a variety of games to play outside. The Nearly Naked Mile run will also take place on this day starting at 2 p.m. Registration for the run beings at 1 p.m.

The Mountain House Sausage Festival takes place from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 21 in the Van Antwerp/Magers Courtyard.

The cost to attend is $1 to $3. To find out more information regarding the event, email Aaron Miller at [email protected].