Saturday night was a big night for Eden Prairie. It was the night of the 25th annual Eden Prairie Foundation Ball. And it was beautiful. I snapped this photo with a camera phone. Sorry about the quality, but even at 1.3 megapixels, you can tell this was a bash to remember. 
The Eden Prairie Foundation is a comunity charitable foundation. It raises money throughout the year and then makes grants to projects and programs that benefit the Eden Prairie community. The City receives grants funds from the Foundation almost every year for such things as a thermo-imaging camera for our Fire Department, the fountain in the Purgatory Creek Recreation Area, and equipment for the City's new archery range. 
These are just examples, and these examples just scratch the surface. The Foundation makes grants to the School District and to a wide array of community non-profits too. I sat next to City Councilmember Sherry Butcher at my table. That's her to the left. Councilmembers Brad Aho and Ron Case were also there, as was Mayor Tyra-Lukens. Councilmember Phil Young is a member of the Foundation Board of Directors. He was there too. The Foundation Ball is an important community event to attend because it gathers many community leaders at the same venue at the same time. These are busy people, and getting 400-500 of them together for the evening doesn't happen very often. It's important to be there.
And there's nothing quite like a "Susie Bar" to finish a beautiful evening. For the less fortunate among you (i.e. – those of you that did not get to eat one), the original Susie Bar comes from the kitchen of Susie Springer. It's a delicious mix of chocolate, butterscotch, Special K cereal, and other secret ingrediants. She sent a tupperware container of them to the Ball with her husband Kip Springer. Kip is a fire fighter for our Fire Department. EPFD fire fighters are the tradition providers of valet parking services at the Foundation Ball. While they're waiting around from the beginning of the ball (at 5:30 pm) to the end (around midnight), they do two of the most popular fire fighter activities in the world: swapping stories and eating. (C'mon guys, you know it's true 
) So that tupperware container was full at the start of the night. I grabbed two of the last three, at their urging of course.
A delicious end to a delicious evening.
