Reservations are available for the eighth annual Raleigh’s Place dinner and silent auction fundraiser event Oct. 23 at the Clanton First Baptist Church Student Life Center.

Raleigh’s Place, a Christian foster care ministry in Chilton County, will use all funds collected at this year’s event to help cover the cost of building a dining facility for the ministry’s summer camp.

“We’ve added the silent auction this year,” Raleigh’s Place co-founder Sharon King said. “We’ve got lots of great things, from artwork to a Rolex watch and signed Alabama and Auburn footballs. It should be, we hope, a good silent auction.”

Local businesses donated items for the silent auction, which will start at 5:30 p.m.

Guests will be able to browse booths with information about Raleigh’s Place and upcoming activities during the auction.

Dinner will start at 6:30 p.m.

Live musical entertainment will be provided.

Dinner is free, but reservations are required by Oct. 21.

King said the nearly $11,000 in funds collected from last year’s dinner helped pay for the dining facility site to be excavated and concrete for the foundation.

The exterior structure of the dining facility will cost about $80,000, King said.

“Then, we’ll still have the commercial kitchen and the inside part, so it’s probably about a $125,000-$150,000 project,” King said. “We hope to use it at camp next summer, but we always follow God’s timing.”

The camp hosted about 75 campers this year and could accommodate many more with the dining facility.

“With the dining facility, we could easily serve 200 in the summertime,” King said. “A pool would finish out the camp. That’s the last two things that we’re working on for the camp.”

During the first summer, campers ate meals at an outdoor picnic pavilion and had to fend off insects.

Campers have used a cabin for mealtimes the last two years.

Although the cabins are insect-free and air conditioned, more space is needed in order for the camp to accommodate a larger number of campers, which is the ultimate goal, King said.

Formed three years ago, Raleigh’s Place summer camp is free and designed for foster children, adoptive children who are or have been in foster care and children in relative placement homes.

Elementary-age children and teens may attend the camp, which includes discipleship, games, swimming, arts and crafts and other activities.

For more information or to make reservations for the dinner, call Amanda Giles at (205) 351-2152 or Raleigh’s Place at (205) 755-9615.