Save the Pronto Pup fundraiser set for April 18

Editor’s note: This version corrects the date in the headline.

The Havre Lions Club Save the Pronto Pup Pint Night will be at Triple Dog Brewing Company 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 18, as a fundraiser to help the organization pay for a new fire suppression system in their booth at the Great Northern Fairgrounds.

Lions Club member Jim Bennett said they recently found out that their booth is out of compliance and they want to keep it open and selling their famous Pronto Pups during the fair, but it’s likely to be an expensive project so they may need some help.

Pronto Pups, made with Rocky Mountain Hot Dogs originally made at Rocky Mountain Packing in Havre in the past, have been a staple fair food since 1955.

The Lions Club booth was built in 1969 and expanded in 1976 and has sold the signature food for decades.

Bennett said selling the Havre staple fair food is their biggest fundraiser of the year, helping fund contributions they regularly make to youth baseball, the Bear Paw Volunteer Fire Department and Plant a Seed … Read!, so it is a very important item for them, and one that is very successful.

Even during the pandemic, he said, when they set up a drive-through instead of a typical booth after the fair was canceled, they were seeing a line of vehicles stretching far down the hill. A lot of people go to the fair just for the food, so it brings in a lot of money for the club and the organizations and programs they support.

He said they don’t have an estimate on how much the new fire suppression system will cost, but because it’s an uninsulated building that spends most of the year completely unoccupied, they will need a system resilient to the elements, and based on the costs he seen others pay, he’s worried that it will be very high.

“I’m not looking forward to seeing the number,” he said.

He said this fundraiser to save a fundraiser will also be on the opening day of the Lions Club State Convention, which Havre will be hosting that Thursday through Saturday, so it will also be a good kickoff event, as well as a good awareness raiser for the club in general.

Bennett said the local community always pitches in to help and Triple Dog was generous in allowing to do this pint night, so he’s hoping to see a good turnout.