Winner Winner, Turkey, Ham Or Oyster Dinner!

Collierstown Presbyterian Church Dinner Is Back This Saturday For Its 100th Anniversary

As the warm days of summer have become the crisp days of autumn, the members and friends of the Collierstown Presbyterian Church have shifted their focus to November and the return of the annual church dinner. The church family will open its doors on Saturday, Nov. 1, and warmly welcome the community, new residents living in the area and strangers who may be passing by. This year’s dinner marks the 100th anniversary of the event that began in 1925.

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.

The same meals available to patrons dining in will be available as take out dinners for those that cannot come to the church to eat. A team of church members will be assembling and packaging meals for pick up. Take-out dinners can be ordered by calling the church at (540) 463-5918 from noon until 6 p.m.

In addition to the dinner, there will 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.

The dinner is sponsored by the Presbyterian Women but is a total church effort with men, women, youths and children of the church 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 held Nov. 5-6, 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. On display were blooming chrysanthemums grown by the church’s women. The Rockbridge County News described the event as “a delightful community affair” despite heavy rain on one of the two days. 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 one hundred years ago, changes have been made but 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 dinner.

“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,” said a spokesperson for the Presbyterian Women. “The church family invites all to be a part of the church’s hospitality on Nov. 1 and share in that blessing too.”