Renowned cook and entrepreneur Paula Deen will lend her celebrity to the fundraising efforts for the Boys & Girls Club of Sumter County, as the featured speaker at the annual Steak & Stake Banquet. The event is planned for 6 to 8 p.m. June 23 at GSW’s Student Success Center.

Deen, an Albany native, has a story of hard-won success and fame. Her story is an inspiring one to all.

As a young girl in Albany, Deen lived an idyllic life with a loving family that included doting parents, grandparents and a large extended family. If there was one consistent theme in the household it was laughter around the dinner table and great Southern meals frequently cooked by Grandmother Paul. Little did Deen know that these special meals and Southern traditions would take her places she had never dreamed.

After graduating from high school in 1965, she married her high school sweetheart and soon started a family that produced two sons. By her 23rd birthday, her happy life spun out of control and tragedy took over her life. Both of her parents died unexpectedly within a year’s time leaving her devastated and in charge of not only her young babies but also her younger brother Bubba. Her culinary career began in June 1989, out of her kitchen with “The Bag Lady,” a home-based lunch delivery service in Savannah, with the help of her two sons, Jamie and Bobby. With $200 given to her by her husband, Paula spent $50 on groceries, roughly $40 on a cooler and the rest on a business license and incidentals.

Tickets to the June 23 Steak & Stake Banquet are now on sale at $75/with meal and $25/program only. For more information, call Lori Clemons at 924-9119 or Susan Ruckman at 924-3864.