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Collierstown Presbyterian Church’s annual church dinner, a community tradition since 1925, returns this Saturday, Nov. 4.
Meals will be served continuously from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. The day’s menu will feature a choice of meats like country ham, fried oysters, and roast turkey with all the trimmings. The meat entrée will be accompanied by the diner’s choice of sweet or mashed potatoes and greens beans along with hot turkey gravy, coleslaw, applesauce, pickles, homemade bread, and a choice of beverages. A meal of this magnitude is not complete without a selection of dessert from an assortment of homemade cakes.
The same meals available to dine-in patrons will be available as take-out dinners for those that cannot come to the church to eat. A team of people will be assembling and packaging meals for pick-up. Take-out dinners can be ordered by calling the church at (540) 463-5918 and meals can be picked up beginning at 11:30 a.m.
Unique to the annual church dinner is the bazaar located in the “red building” on the church grounds. The building will be filled with items for sale like homemade baked goods (breads, rolls, pies, cakes, cookies), jars of fresh soups, handcrafted items (woodwork, knitted and crocheted goods, holiday decorations), jewelry, apples, garden produce, and apple butter.
Proceeds from the bazaar will be donated to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes of Rockbridge County and to Helping Hands, a food bank ministry of Fairfield Presbyterian Church.
The annual church dinner is sponsored by the Presbyterian Women but is a total church effort with CPC men, women, youth, and children working together. Proceeds from the dinner are used to fund mission projects locally and abroad.
The idea for the annual dinner began in 1924 with a dream held by three Presbyterian women, Rosa Deacon Goodbar, Virginia Potter Knick and Ethel Montgomery Thomas. They believed hospitality is a Biblical command whose purpose is to minister to others. Their work and planning became a reality with the first dinner known then as the Chrysanthemum Show and Dinner being held on Nov. 5 and 6, 1925. The event was held at the Collierstown Graded School, the present site of the Collierstown Baptist Church. It was known as a Chrysanthemum Show and Dinner because it included a “flower room” for patrons to enjoy, displaying blooming chrysanthemums grown by the church’s women.
The first Chrysanthemum Show and Dinner was a “soggy one” that nevertheless was embraced and praised by patrons as “a delightful community affair.” It was also a financial success that enabled the church’s mission efforts to grow and extend to a larger area.
Since that first dinner, changes have been made but oysters are still fried on the church kitchen’s woodstove and the menu is much the same. More importantly the dream of extending hospitality and showing care and concern for others is still the heart of the annual church dinner event.
