UPDATE: Help The Fight has found a new venue for their cancelled banquet and auction originally scheduled to take place at the Lancaster Host Resort. The event will now be held at Spooky Nook Sports Complex on Saturday November 7, 2015. Doors will open at 4:30 p.m. and dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m. "We cannot express how much we appreciate the outpouring of support we have experienced. We received MANY offers from local businesses and we are truly grateful for each and every one of them. Our need for space was the main determining factor which helped finalize our decision to go with Spooky Nook. Not to mention their attention to detail, flexibility and overall professionalism…they helped make this process a lot less stressful," said Lynda Charles.
As for her deposit, Charles said the Host contacted her after FOX43's coverage and said she would be reimbursed, but that hasn't happened yet.
Previously reported:
EAST LAMPETER TOWNSHIP, Pa. --When Lynda Charles chose the Lancaster Host Resort and Conference Center, she thought she had found a venue large enough to host a fundraiser with 350 guests. The fundraiser is the biggest of the year for her charity 'Help the Fight,' which helps women who are battling breast cancer.
"We will pay mortgage, rent, utilities, medical expenses, last winter it was so cold we filled many oil tanks for patients," said Charles.
A day before her biggest fundraiser, she learned it had to be canceled. "We had a 24 hour time period. I received a phone call about 4:30 in the afternoon last Friday and I was told that the event on Saturday needed to be cancelled because the 'Host' had the inability to serve food and drink," said Charles.
Health inspectors shut down the kitchen at the Lancaster Host Resort on September 1 after finding more than 20 violations in the resort's kitchen. During an inspection on September 11 inspectors discovered the sewer lines were not operational. The restaurant cannot reopen until everything is corrected. The management at the Lancaster Host Resort declined to comment.
Charles is left looking for another venue.
"It is critical that we have that main fundraiser. that evening alone we raise tens of thousands of dollars," said Charles. She is disappointed with how the company handled the situation.
"We had reached out the them after they called us to cancel to no avail. The phone calls were not returned," said Charles, who says to top it all off she hasn't been refunded her deposit.
"It's $1,000 of hard-earned money. With us being a 100% volunteer organization, we do that for a reason. We do that because we know that every dollar we raise comes out of the pockets of hard-working people and we want to helps as many patients as we possibly can," she said.