Shriners bring Georgia onions to Montana

Editor's note: This version adds the price of the onions.

The North Central Montana Shrine Club will be holding their annual Vidalia onion fundraiser, with onions arriving from Georgia early next week.

Fundraisers are held throughout the year by the Shrine Club including a beef raffle and a pig raffle, but the largest one is their onion fundraiser held in the spring/summer season.

The onions are selling this year for $13 for a 10-pound bag.

Shriner Alvin Bitz said they have 6,000 pounds of Vidalia onions on the road to Havre and they should be arriving next week.

Last year, the club had some problems with the onions sitting too long on the trucks, he said, so they changed the company and trucks they are working with for this year’s fundraiser.

“We want people to have the best,” Bitz said.

Shrine Club Member Bob Brandon said the group has always felt a lot of support from the Havre community; the businesses as well as the people who participate in all of their fundraisers.

The North Central Montana club is part of the Algeria Shriners International which is based out of Helena. The North Central Club covers from one side of Harlem over to Shelby and down to Big Sandy, Bitz said.

“It covers four counties,” he added.

All of the money from the club’s onion fundraiser is used locally. It goes to help pay for the children’s hospital stay as well as the transportation costs to go out to the hospital.

Bitz said he recommends people call early to put in their orders for the onions as they usually sell out in about a week and a half.

The club once sold 450 pounds of onions in four hours, Brandon added.

To put in an order for the Vidalia onions, people can call Brandon’s Drapery and Floor Covering at 265-9852, Hank Tweeten’s Auto Body at 265-6753, Bob Brandon at 262-3010, or Alvin Bitz at 265-0626 or 945-7556.