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FAIRMONT - Grab your dinner date and get ready for some fun - Habitat for Humanity Martin-Faribault Counties' Celebrity Dinner is just around the corner.

The catered dinner will be served by Fairmont's upper echelon, with an eye on being named "Server Supreme." To receive that coveted title, the server must delight diners into tipping him or her more than other servers are tipped by their customers.

All money raised from the $20 ticket and server tips goes to building projects in Martin and Faribault counties. Habitat for Humanity hopes to have enough money raised to begin a building project by summer 2010.

This is the second time Habitat has hosted the dinner, an event that raised $7,000 in its first year.

Volunteer coordinator Eric Johnson said this year's event will be even bigger and better.

"This is a really fun event," he said. "Something to jazz up the mid-winter blahs."

Nearly 20 servers, including Mayor Randy Quiring and his wife, Kelly; City Administrator Jim Zarling; Fairmont Police Chief Greg Brolsma; and Martin County Sheriff Brad Gerhardt will vie for the most entertaining server title, led by master of ceremony Loren Dunham.

Servers often come dressed in costume, and are given up to five minutes during the night to entertain the entire crowd.

"We are going to put Brolsma's and Gerhardt's tables near each other and hopefully they will keep everything in order," Johnson laughed.

A meal of roast beef, salad, potatoes and two kinds of cheesecakes will be provided by Vetter's.

The dinner is the charity's largest fund-raising event, followed by a Saturday Night Live event held in Blue Earth in the spring.

Johnson said times have been tight for the organization, which uses mortgage payments from past homeowners to finance a portion of a new house. The payments do not cover the entire cost of a home, so in addition to volunteer support, the group relies on fund-raising.

Prospective homeowners agree to put in hundreds of hours of "sweat equity" in exchange for an affordable mortgage, and the homes are built by volunteer labor.

Habitat typically alternates in which of the two counties it builds a home, but Habitat for Humanity's affiliate president Linda Steinhauer said they are still working out exactly where the next home will be built.

The family chosen for the next home lives in Fairmont, but works in Blue Earth.

"We really encourage people to come out, and people have a ball," Johnson said. "It is a free-wheeling evening and people are supporting a great cause."

Social hour begins at 6 p.m. Feb. 6 at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Fairmont. Dinner service will be at 6:30 p.m. Tickets for the event are available at Hy-Vee.