Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Gillian Stawiszynski

Bluegrass Newsmedia

Festival food truck funds nonprofit dedicated to aiding animals

Tails A Waggin will be one of over 20 food vendors attending the Daniel Boone Pioneer Festival this year.

It’s only Victoria Sexton’s second year of operating her food truck with the help of her mother, Sherry Robinson. But food is far from the point of her truck; she also has a nonprofit.

Before starting Tails a Waggin, Sexton worked for the Morgan County Animal Shelter as an animal control officer for about seven years. According to Robinson, this shelter only allowed their workers to rescue dogs.

“She didn’t think it was right that you could only rescue a dog and not other animals. So after working with our county, she quit and took it upon herself to establish a 501(c)(3),” said Sherry Robinson.

This past year alone, Sexton has rescued 321 dogs and cats. That’s almost an animal for every day of the year.

Not only will Sexton find an animal on the road and stop what she’s doing to get it the care that it needs- but she will also take pets from homes where their only owner has died and ensure they have all their shots and their vetting while fostering them before she finds them a new home through a highly-regulated Pennsylvania program called Cross Your Paws.

Sexton also helps people under a certain income level. She’ll pay 100 percent of pet owners’ vetting bills, medicine and pet food bills as long as they’re under a certain income.

Robinson said their home county, Morgan, also has a high population of elderly adults on fixed income, and some cannot drive. Because of the county’s 2012 tornado, many county residents still struggle.

Sexton ensures her neighbors are not left to fend for themselves. There are some folks to whom Sexton will repeatedly deliver dog food to ensure they’re not having to choose between paying for their dinner or their pets.

“She makes sure that she helps them take care of their animals because they’re like their kids,” Robinson said.

In addition to rescuing animals, Sexton helps Kentuckians from any county get their animals spayed and neutered. She will also pay for these procedures for people needing financial assistance.

Much like people who serve in a county animal shelter, Sexton is always on call. But- with everything she does, it’s almost like she’s running an animal shelter all by herself.

Sexton also works part-time at a grocery store, and runs her own fundraising events through her food truck.

“That’s what our food trailer does; it’s 100 percent nonprofit and we go to festivals and fairs, and we take that money and she puts that into helping people who are low-income,” Robinson said.

The truck also sells dog treats, but they make sure to keep them separate so people don’t mistake a dog biscuit for human cookies.

The Tails a Waggin food truck has typical American favorites like cheesy fries, nachos and hamburgers. All proceeds go towards helping animals and funding the food truck.

To follow the truck’s whereabouts and support Sexton and Robinson, visit www.facebook.com/tailsawaggin2022.

Piggin Out bringing fresh food, crazy taters to Pioneer Festival

The Daniel Boone Pioneer Festival has mouth-watering returning food vendors that have locals on the edge of their seats.

One of the crowd favorites is a vendor called Piggin Out- it’s family-owned and operated, and the vendors attended the same festival last year and have attended the previous two Winchester Beer Cheese Festivals in the city. They’ve even served for a wedding!

“We seem to have a good turnout every time we come over to Winchester, so I think they love us, I hope they love us, they ask us to come back, so I think that’s a good sign,” said co-owner Tara Asberry.

Asberry started Piggin Out from a little trailer about eight years ago. At that point, it was just a hobby, but three years later, Asberry’s mother, Roxanne Hollon, joined her daughter. They got so much work they made it their full-time job, got a truck, and became a huge success.

“A year or two into it we upgraded and got another truck, so we were running two. So many people wanted us to come out and sell our food, so my husband also decided to go full-time,” Asberry said.

Then, the family bought their third and final truck.

Now, Asberry’s mother, husband, cousin, her two teenage sons and their girlfriends are all part of the team- like a mobile restaurant run by the Brady Bunch.

“It’s awesome that we get to work together like this,” Asberry said.

The menu has always kept the same traditional American taste with a southern twist.

“We did our burgers, we did our ribeyes and then we just kind of expanded,” Asberry said.

As her company expanded, she added different style burgers, fried pickles, fried desserts and their now-famous crazy taters.

Asberry said she is most proud of how her family prepares the food. Everything is the freshest it could be, it is never frozen.

“Our trucks have no freezers on them, we don’t freeze anything,” Asberry said. The day of, the family hand-patties every one of their burgers, they have a butcher cut every one of their ribeyes, and they slice up those same ribeyes to make their Philly cheesesteaks.

The fries are all cut on the truck the day of the festival and throughout that day.

“If we need more burgers, we have someone sit inside that will patty those burgers. And stuff that we handbatter, we do that to order. So if someone orders it, we have someone in the back battering it,” Asberry said.

To fight the wait time for the truck’s fast food, they give customers pagers so they can walk through arts and crafts booths and listen to live music.

“So that’s kind of a cool thing for festivals, so people don’t just have to sit there and wait for their food; they can go enjoy the festival while they’re waiting,” Asberry said.

As a mother, Asberry also recognizes how expensive it is to feed multiple children. “I have a four-year-old and he’s picky, and I don’t want to buy a $7 or $8 burger, and he takes a couple bites of it.”

The kid’s meal is $3.50 and includes a hot dog, a bag of chips and a Kool-Aid jammer.

To fulfill your Piggin Out craving, follow its Facebook page for updates on future events and locations they’ll be serving at www.facebook.com/thepigout.