I'm Tracci Dial with a special edition of Northwest Public Broadcasting's Weekly News Now.

Another community spotlight.

This time we have the pleasure of being joined by the Taco Mistress, Emily Maloney, from the Pasco Taco crawl.

First of all, Emily, thank you so much for joining us.

Second, tell us a little bit about what the crawl is.

The Taco Crawl is a two week event that is usually end of April or beginning of May.

And in it, folks get to buy a voucher booklet with 20 vouchers for 20 different taco places, and then they can go around those places, turn in their vouchers, get a taco in return.

They get to take taco tasting notes so that they can vote at the end for the best taco in Pasco.

It is super fun.

And it's run by a committee.

I am honored to also be on the committee as the Taco Talker.

And it's important to know what the mission is.

It's not just about eating delicious tacos.

It's not just about raising money.

What else is the Pasco Taco Crawl about, Emily?

Well, the Taco Crawl is actually primarily about getting folks into downtown Pasco.

We all have, you know, on the committee, we all know that downtown Pasco is actually a really great place to be.

But we feel like folks need to be invited to come across the river and, from the west side of town, to come down and check it out, see what we've got going on.

So, we use tacos for that because as everybody knows, tacos are an international love language.

And the tacos are delicious.

It is for a good cause, The Boys and Girls Club.

So, tell me about that relationship.

And also it helps businesses, too.

So, yeah, so we to date have raised about $64,000 for the Boys and Girls Clubs.

We love partnering with them.

They help us out with the event.

They're all in.

Many of the children that they serve live around the area that we're inviting folks into, and many of the vendors have children who have done it as well.

In fact, one year Trejos, the two time winner, they found out that their their kiddo who is part of impact percussion had won worlds like around the time that we were collecting vouchers.

So Boys and Girls Club staff got to celebrate with the owners of Trejos.

It was really exciting, really fun connection for us.

That's wonderful.

And the businesses, they get money back from these tacos and lots of people, they do become return customers.

And what's cool, it's not just Tri-Cities tourism, getting people from Kennewick into Pasco.

People come from all over, don't they?

They do.

We get folks...

There's a guy from Seattle who sent me an email one time telling me that he closes down his practice, I think he's like a chiropractor or something, every year so he can come over and do the Taco Crawl.

So it is for everyone.

All for the love of tacos for the Boys and Girls Club.

Well, thank you, Emily.

What should people know about any events coming up?

How do people keep track of it at least?

people should check out our website, PascoTacoCrawl.com and we will have information on the upcoming crawl weeks.

It's going to be April 19th and more details will be coming soon.

All right.

Thank you so much, Emily.

Thank you.