It’s a simple fund-raiser that’s become a big deal. Roughly 300 people — paying $45 a piece — turned out for the fifth annual Wild Game Dinner hosted by the Chester County Sheriff’s Department on March 1.

According to Sheriff Carolyn “Bunny” Welsh, people began clamoring for tickets last summer.

The event — held at the Westside Entertainment center in West Chester — helps support the department’s canine unit and featured a menu that included alligator, duck, venison, pheasant and a buffalo/llama meat loaf. There were also raffles and auctions for a variety of sporting weapons.

One of the hits of the evening was the auctioning off of a black Labrador retriever puppy named Chester.

The dog went to recently elected Pocopson Township Supervisor Matt Read.

Read, a professional dog trainer, said the lab would be a gift for his mother. He said he expected to have a full belly by the end of the evening, but didn’t count on going home with a dog.

“My mom was saying she wanted a black Lab. Her golden is getting older so my son and I thought we’d surprise his grandmother,” he said.

Beyond getting the dog for his mother, the event is important to Read because it supports the canine division.

“They work hard to train their dogs and anything my son and I can do for them, we’d like to,” Read said.

He added that the department had previously taken his son, Jake Read, 16, out with the unit to show him how they work with the dogs.

“It meant a lot to me that they did that,” the elder Read said.

As a trainer, Read said he works with a number of police departments.

Also on hand for the event was state Rep. Stephen Barrar who also thinks highly of the annual dinner, both for its goal to raise money for the sheriff’s department and for the chance to try new foods.

“I get to sample food that I would never eat and you get to meet a lot of nice people,” Barrar said.

He said he specifically liked the meat loaf, calling it “incredible.”

The lure of exotic food brought out others as well. Sonya Perry, from Valley Township, and her friend Kimber Grant-Diaz, from West Grove, both said they like exotic meats and try new things. Neither of the two hunt, but both are target shooters, they said.

Grant-Diaz said her boyfriend would definitely go to next year’s dinner.

Tom Verwey, an attorney from Downingtown, called the night a “neat way to raise money for the canines.”

Roughly $9,000 was raised last year and Deputy Sheriff Harry McKinney said they were hoping to do at least that this year.

Deputy Adam Weaver loved the turnout.

“It’s great to see people support us. It’s just a great night,’ Weaver said.

The Chester County Sheriff’s Department currently has three dogs, one each to sniff out drugs, explosives and accelerants. Several deputies are scheduled for training in Ohio later this month.

Last year’s dinner raised some controversy when one of the rifles that was raffled was an AR-15. A number of protesters gathered then arguing that it was inappropriate to offer such a weapon in light of the Sandy Hook shooting.

There was no such controversy this year.

Top photo: Chester County Sheriff Carolyn :Bunny" Welsh, with the help of Erin O'Connor, show off Chester, the black Labrador retriever that was eventually auctioned off to Pocopson Township Supervisor Matt Read.