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As the warm days of summer become the crisp days of autumn the members and friends of the Collierstown Presbyterian Church are looking to November and the return of the annual church dinner.
Since 1925, the annual dinner has been a day when the Collierstown Presbyterian Church family opens its doors and warmly welcomes the community, visitors living in the area, and strangers who may be passing by. All are invited to come inside and enjoy a hot meal and share in the hospitality and fellowship offered by the church’s members and friends.
This year the dinner will be held on Saturday, Nov. 2. Meals will be served continuously from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. The day’s menu will feature choices of 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. The finishing touch is the selection of dessert from an assortment of homemade cakes.
Dinners are also available as take-out orders for those who 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 (540) 463-5918 beginning at noon until 6.
In addition to the dinner, there will also be a bazaar located in the “red building” on the church grounds. The bazaar building will be filled with items for sale like homemade baked goods, jars of fresh soups, handcrafted items, 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 men, women, youths 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 beheld on Nov. 5 and 6, 1925, 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. On display were blooming chrysanthemums grown by the church’s women. The first Chrysanthemum Show and Dinner was a “rainy 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 nearly 100 years ago, 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 the heart of the annual church dinner event, said a spokeswoman. It is the experience of the Collierstown Presbyterian Church members that as hospitality is offered to guests and to each other, it is the church family that is richly blessed. The CPC family, she said, invites all to be a part of the church’s hospitality on Saturday and share in that blessing too.
