More than 500 people sampled 23 Muncie restaurants on Sunday at the 23rd annual Taste of Muncie at Cornerstone Center for the Arts.
The fundraising event included 23 eateries offering samples, live entertainment and raffle prizes given out by the vendors.
President of Cornerstone Center for the Arts Terry Bailey said funds from the event are used for operating and program support. She said the money will help accommodate the growing numbers of students who take classes at the center and maintain the building.
"People may not realize that just in this semester alone that started in January we had over 560 students in our classes," she said. "And 20 percent of those students have a scholarship."
Chris Mahon, director of community engagement at Cornerstone Center for the Arts said this was her first event, and was happy it went well.
"Taste of Muncie had a wonderful sponsorship and participation from many restaurants," she said.
"I'm glad people saw this gloomy Sunday afternoon as opportunity to come here and help Cornerstone Center for the Arts."
For the attendees, the event was an opportunity to learn about establishments in Muncie.
Sophomore sports management major Joshua Brown said it was good restaurants from the community participated.
"I think it's fun they have a competition," he said. "It shows some of the culture in Muncie, and features great variety of food, from ice cream to Italian to hamburgers."
Chef Heather Pier, from the Ivy Tech culinary department, said students from the department have presented their recipes at the Taste of Muncie for five years.
"Students create their own recipes and compete to participate in this event," she said. "More than competing here, it is a learning experience for the students."
Bailey said besides new vendors participating, not many changes were made.
"The tradition is for people to go and taste any food that they like," she said. "We have several new vendors that participated in the event, new restaurants that some people in town may not have had a chance to taste yet and so it would be a good time to come out and check them out as well as the restaurants that they look forward to every year."
However, some businesses have suffered from the downturn of the economy, Pier said.
"We have new vendors, and its good to see that" she said. "Because this event would not be going on if it weren't for new vendors that participate each year. Some of the restaurants that used to participate aren't here anymore, because they went out of business."
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