The Roku streaming series will be based on three local “So You Think You Can Cook” competitions that were recently hosted at the St. Susan Center.

Cheri Rowland, executive director, said the fundraising competitions were “amazing.”

“We ended up with nine chefs over three weeks,” she said. “We were so blessed and so excited to have these chefs that came down and showed off their skills and we had them compete.”

This year’s “So You Think You Can Cook” fundraiser involved three different chefs competing each night to create an appetizer and an entree to be judged by a panel of three judges for each competition. The “mystery ingredients” for the competition included items from the St. Susan Center’s kitchen as well as ingredients from local businesses and restaurants.

St. Susan Center recently held a fundraising event series called “So You Think You Can Cook,” which will soon be available to stream on Roku Channel 716. Pictured are photos that were taken during the filming of the three cooking competition episodes. Submitted photos

The chefs featured in this year’s competition included Marlene Lucas, David Carlson, Melissa Paterniti, James Olmstead, Marc A. Graves, Chad Hallberg, Nathan Hallberg, Margo Stuart and Camille Hodnett.

“It was a real fun three nights, and we plan to keep doing this and we’re coming up with several different ideas of cookoffs,” Rowland said. “Seeing that we had three different nights and three different winners, we didn’t go on to a finale like we did when Geoffrey Zakarian came in last year, but there’s a possibility we may be inviting these three winners back for a cook off.

Rowland explained that each of the three nights of competition were recorded and will be released as an “episodic program” on Roku Channel 716 starting on April 1. Rowland added that the St. Susan Center has not publicly disclosed the winner of each of the episode winners in anticipation for the Roku channel episodes.

“What we’ve seen so far from the programming, it looks amazing, and they really were able to get a hold of the excitement that the chefs had, and our judges were amazing as well,” she said.

Rowland said all of the proceeds that were collected during the three “So You Think You Can Cook” events will benefit the St. Susan Center. In addition to the money raised at the in-person events, St. Susan Center is currently looking for sponsors for the Roku episode series. Between the proceeds from the in-person events and money raised through sponsors for the streaming series, Rowland is hoping St. Susan Center will be able to reach its fundraising goal.

St. Susan Center recently held a fundraising event series called “So You Think You Can Cook,” which will soon be available to stream on Roku Channel 716. Pictured are photos that were taken during the filming of the three cooking competition episodes. Submitted photos

“We have a goal and we’re not quite there,” she said. “My goal this year was to make around $3,000, and we’re right now around $1,600. We had very little expense involved. Everybody that came in and volunteered, and we used our mystery and greed ingredients as donations from the community.”

In order to meet the fundraising goal of $3,000, Rowland is planning to raise the remaining money through the Roku episode commercial sponsors in the coming weeks.

According to Rowland, one of the “fun” highlights from the recent cooking competition events was the concept of mystery ingredients.

“What makes the whole mystery ingredient even more fun for St. Susan’s is that St. Susan’s receives mystery ingredients just about every day that we have to figure out how we’re going to prepare for it because we’re mainly sustained by donations from the public,” she said. “If we get five cans of corn and three cans of beans, we better figure out how we might better use those.”

Rowland said that the chefs involved in the cooking competition fundraiser were challenged with “wacky” ingredients that they had to quickly use to prepare “masterpieces” for the “So You Think You Can Cook” judges. Rowland said the mystery ingredient competition was “very exciting” for the contestants, the judges and the audience.

Additional excitement at the fundraising event was caused by the appearance of the Jamestown Fire Department. Rowland said the fire department had to show up at the event because she did not open the building’s windows. As a result, the fire alarms went off during one of the cooking competitions. However, this year was not the first time the fire department had to make an appearance at St. Susan’s cooking competition.

“What was so amazing during this is that last year during our Geoffrey Zakarian’s ‘So You Think You Can Cook,’ we had the fire department show up for that one too,” she said. “They were very gracious, and I have to give a shout out to them because both times they were just amazing and just so professional and pleasant.”

For those who were not able to attend the three fundraising events and watch St. Susan Center’s cooking competitions in-person, Rowland said she is encouraging people to look for a link on St. Susan Center’s Facebook page or website (website at stsusancenter.org) that will soon be available for the public. Rowland added that additional announcements will be provided soon regarding the upcoming Roku episodes.

Rowland told The Post-Journal that St. Susan Center’s fundraising events are important because the organization is funded through individual contributions from community members, community foundation grants, state and federal grants, funding through Feed More Western New York and through fundraising events like “So You Think You Can Cook.”

“It is super important,” she said. “Last year we fed 34,000 meals, and this year it looks like we’re we may exceed that just based on our numbers we are seeing in the first quarter already. Just to put it in perspective, in December when we had our Holiday Haul with Keith Martin and Dan Keefe, we were averaging around 120 meals a day, and right now we’re averaging around 150 meals a day.”

Rowland explained that St. Susan Center is seeing an “uptick” due to the recent “realignment” of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as well as inflation, which she said is “hitting folks pretty hard” in Chautauqua County.