The food cart Best Burger of Gresham won the top $500 "People's Choice" award at East County's first food cart competition, which was held from 5-9 p.m. Thursday, June 21, in Troutdale.

About 2,500 people converged at the Home Depot/KeyBank parking lot on Southeast Stark Street to try food from nine participating food carts and vote for their favorite.

Best Burger is located at Southeast Stark Street and 185th Avenue. The other participating carts were Hungry Heart Cupcakes, Voodoo Doughnut, Taco Pedaler, Saucy's BBQ, PBJs Grilled, the Gaufre Gourmet, Fat Kitty Falafel and Absolutely Juicy.

Proceeds from the event went to support Troutdale-based Adult Learning Systems of Oregon (ALSO), a nonprofit agency with a focus on providing residential and vocational services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Deen Gill, community development director for ALSO, said the event raised more than $8,000 from sponsors and from the food carts, which donated at least 10 percent of their proceeds.

"The voting was spread out really well" among the food carts, Gill said. "It was fun that a local food cart won, the only representative we had from East County."

Gill said seven carts ran out of food before the event ended at 9 p.m.

The event also included a raffle and silent auction for dozens of prizes including a flat-screen television, wine, gift certificates, vacation getaways, golf packages and a motor scooter.

Gill said the food-cart competition will become an annual event at the beginning of summer. One proposal for next year is to double the number of participating food carts, he said.