Photo by Hunter Wilson/Daily News Amelia Nauman, 6, picks out a brownie with her mother, Marsha Nauman, on Saturday at the Hospice Chocolate Festival at the Sloan Convention Center.

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It proved to be a sweet day for Hospice of Southern Kentucky on Sunday, with hundreds of people filling the Sloan Convention Center for the annual Hospice Chocolate Festival.

A total of 38 restaurants, stores and candy makers participated in this year’s festival, offering an assortment of sweets to festival goers.

Also, 100 donors contributed items to the festival’s silent auction.

Hospice’s executive director, Betty Biggerstaff, said the annual festival and auction is the agency’s biggest fundraiser each year.

Last year’s festival managed to raise more than $11,000 for hospice, and while Biggerstaff said she hoped to improve on that this year, attendance at the festival Sunday appeared to lag behind last year’s count.

“We’d like to make about $2,000 more this year, but we’re not sure if that’s going to happen,” Biggerstaff said, noting that the change to daylight savings time over the weekend may have caused people to arrive later in the day.

Sunday’s festival did see increased participation by local restaurants and businesses, with several first-time participants, Biggerstaff said.

Among those taking part in the festival for the first time were the Hispanic-owned bakery La Espiga, which contributed a large cake, and a group of students taking a community nutrition class at Western Kentucky University.

“So many of our participants have a personal experience with hospice, and they often say that (the festival) is their way of giving back,” said Julie Pride, community development coordinator for hospice.

The student group performed two presentations during the day touting the health benefits of chocolate.

According to the students, chocolate, which is derived from a plant, contains a high number of antioxidants. The greater the cocoa content in chocolate, the more cholesterol-fighting antioxidants are present.

“Consumed in moderation, an ounce of chocolate a day can be healthy for you,” said Will Conkright, a senior from Owensboro who recommended dark chocolate as the healthiest of the chocolates.

With brownies, ice cream, cake and other treats in great abundance Sunday, the healthiest part of the chocolate festival may have been the walking around the room to the different tables set up by vendors.

The Warren County Democratic Women did have a table filled with fruits and vegetables to balance out the sweets.

“I’m having way too much fun, I’m probably on a sugar high now,” said Jan Perkins, attending her first festival with a group from Eastwood Baptist Church.

Perkins, who has a friend who works for hospice, said her favorite treats were at the table for Cosmos restaurant, which had double fudge brownies among many treats.

“It’s good to see so many people come out,” Perkins said.

In addition to the chocolate, the silent auction attracted festival goers, with prizes that included a trip for two from Cincinnati to Chicago offered by the Cincinnati Railway Co. The high-dollar prize had a value of $3,200.

Other items that received lots of bids included a year’s supply of bread and bagels from Panera Bread, a voucher for four tickets to a Cincinnati Reds game, a Weber grill donated by Camping World and a DVD/VCR donated by McGown TV.

Hospice has big plans for later this year, including the anticipated opening in July of a new 10-suite facility on Scottsville Road.

Jeff Williams, a volunteer for hospice, spent the afternoon handing out samples of chocolate chip cake from Country Oven Bakery.

“I’ve been involved with the other side of hospice before, and they’ve done a lot of good in the community for people who need it,” Williams said.

Strong participation by vendors from beyond Warren County gave Biggerstaff optimism that future chocolate festivals will be just as successful as recent ones.

“We’re getting more participation from restaurants in the nine counties hospice serves,” Biggerstaff said. “We think this will make the chocolate festival a tremendous success.”