Community comes together for cause

Submitted Photo
Eric Thoemke, Minot Food Truck Festival executive director, and Matthew Maldonado, digital media specialist with ND Strong, pose plates of hot dogs for a food eating contest at the 2023 festival in Oak Park.

Oak Park in Minot will be buzzing on Sunday, Aug. 25, at the seventh annual Minot Food Truck Festival.

The festival is hosted by ND Strong, an education nonprofit that funds The Film Dudes program, which provides opportunities for students throughout the state to get hands-on experience making films and creating content.

Throughout the year, The Film Dudes travel across North Dakota and work with schools and other academic institutions in teaching the integration of media production into curriculum, conducting workshops with staff and students and exhibiting film opportunities throughout the state.

Eric Thoemke, the festival director, said 20 trucks will be at the 2024 festival, which also will showcase around 20 local vendors, concerts, free food eating contests, music performances, fire throwers, 15 bounce castles and other free activities, such as mini golf and ax throwing for children and families. A majority of the food trucks are based in North Dakota, but Thoemke said some vendors from previous years have hailed from South Dakota and even Las Vegas.

“It’s a perfect time of the year. The weather is normally perfect. Everyone comes to the park one day and it really feels like a bigger city atmosphere. There’s music playing, tons of variety of food. There’s artists doing artwork on the site, and we’re looking to add so much more this year. We’re pretty excited about it. There’s a lot of community involvement, and I think that’s what makes it most special. It’s an awesome event in the park, and you don’t get too many of those in the summer that are this size,” Thoemke said.

The first food truck festival in 2017 had 13 trucks participating, and Thoemke said the community turnout blew away their expectations.

“We were only expecting 500 people to show up. I think almost all the food trucks sold out the first year. We had over 5,000 people show up. We were running around with our heads cut off,” Thoemke said.