When the Ruidoso Optimist Club started looking for a fund raiser former Club President Tom McElligott had a truly unique and spicy idea.
“Since we have two motorcycle rally’s each year I think we should do something that ties in with that,” McElligott told the club. “I can get us our own salsa made and we can sell it.”
McElligott has been in the chili business for many years and guided the project from inception to reality.
Thus H.O.G. Salsa was born. The H.O.G. has obvious motorcycle connotations but actually stand for “Help Optimist Grow.”
To keep the project as local as possible the Optimist Club offered a reward to the Ruidoso High School art students to design a label that incorporated the H.O.G. theme and the marketing slogan “Kickstart Your Meal.”
“We had a bunch of really great entries from the art students,” Optimist Club member Jim Miller said. “But Trevor Ketner’s entry clearly captured what we were looking for in a label.”
Ketner, a junior at Ruidoso High School won $50.00 for his chili pepper tanked motorcycle label that adorns all of the H.O.G. Salsa jars.
Keeping it as local as they could, the Optimist Club went to Comfort Foods in Albuquerque with McElligott’s recipes for Hot and Medium salsas. Taste tests of slightly different recipes produced the Hot and Medium salsas with a gourmet blend of five peppers and other natural ingredients the Optimist Club liked.
“The hot is selling about 2 to 1 over the medium, when we let them taste test it.” Optimist Club member Dee Woodward said. “At the Walk-In-The-Woods we sold four cases of salsa and those people didn’t come to the event to buy anything. After tasting the salsa many of them went back to their cars to get their money to buy it.”
Those who didn’t have the cash with them to buy it asked where they could get it.
“We have Optimist Club members in most of the local banks and they all have H.O.G. Salsa for sale,” Ruidoso Optimist Club President Maria Misquez said. “We have also had numerous local merchants agree to sell it for us. Vac & Sew, Cozy Cabins, Ruidoso Ready Labor, the Ruidoso Bus Station, Village Ace Hardware, Postal Annex and others have H.O.G. Salsa for sale. The support we are getting from the community is marvelous.”
The first real big test of the Optimist Club plan to cash in on the motorcycle rallies comes this week with the AspenCash Motorcycle Rally at the Ruidoso Convention Center .
“The AspenCash Motorcycle Rally organizers have been fantastic,” Misquez said. “They have donated a booth to the Optimist Club so we can sell our salsas at the rally. The Noon Lions Club also donated a booth so we can sell it at their Gun Show Memorial Day weekend.”
H.O.G. Salsa is not going to just be a local product. The Optimist Club has a web site, www.hogsalsa.com where H.O.G. Salsa can be ordered by the case and shipped anywhere in the United States . The Ruidoso Bus Station is shipping it at cost. Optimist Club members McElligott and Rita Griffin took H.O.G. Salsa to the New Mexico State Optimist Club convention in early May and offered it to other Optimist Clubs to sell as a fund raiser and they are going to present it to Optimist Clubs from around the world at the Optimist Club International Convention in Grapevine, Texas in early July.
“We aren’t sure how big this is going to become but every penny of what we make off the H.O.G. Salsa will go to help the youth or our community,” Misquez said. “The more money we make, the more we have to give away to worthwhile causes for our young people.”
