A lot on their plate Community groups cook up plans to save fall suppers from hard-to-stomach fate By: Alan Small Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Wednesday, Sep. 9, 2020

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This article was published 09/09/2020 (2079 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Townsfolk in southern Manitoba are doing their part to keep the COVID-19 pandemic from ending an autumn tradition.

Volunteers and organizers in communities such as Altona, Zhoda, Friedensfeld and Tolstoi will be holding fall suppers, or at least adapting the annual get-togethers to 2020’s new normal.

These casual banquets often attract hundreds of hungry folks from the surrounding area to help raise funds for churches, charities, non-profit organizations and community halls.

When the novel coronavirus spread across Canada in the spring, it didn’t take long before organizers decided to cancel the dinners or, later, to adapt them to fit regulations against large public gatherings.

“When (COVID-19) first came out, and at the time you could only have 10 people inside, we were like, ‘We can’t have a fall supper this year,’ and that’s one of our big fundraisers for the hall,” says Denise Tysoski, who co-ordinates the Zhoda fall supper. “You couldn’t even get 20 people together to make the perogies.”

Come summertime, when the province eased public-gathering restrictions, Zhoda, along with other rural fall supper committees, decided to use drive-thrus or curbside-pickup versions of the annual dinners.

The 2020 menu will be similar to the one Zhoda has put on every year since it began in the 1950s, with fried chicken, meatballs with gravy, perogies, cabbage rolls, corn and ice cream, but Tysoski says they’re not making some of the side dishes they normally do. A crew of volunteers will prepare and box up food, and the $15 dinners will be passed to those who drive up, first-come, first-served.

Fall suppers are also a popular tradition in Winnipeg, but virtually all of them have been cancelled, owing to the pandemic.

St. Anne Ukrainian Catholic Church in River East is one of those which had to postpone its usual plans to 2021. It has held a fall supper for years, and the event has become so popular that it normally holds two sittings of 250 people each for those who enjoy Ukrainian favourites, as well as the community spirit the get-togethers provide.

It’s a tight squeeze for both visitors and volunteers who prepare the food at the church hall during a regular fall supper, so organizers knew they would have to call off the event, says Tracy Balagus, the president of the Ukrainian Catholic Women’s League for St. Anne.

She knew the decision would not only be a financial blow to the church but also to charities and organizations it supports, such as the Welcome Home mission and Agape Table in Winnipeg, as well as charities in Ukraine.

“We’re a service-oriented organization. We’re there to support our church, our community and causes that we feel are important,” Balagus says. “It kind of leaves everybody unhappy that we’re unable to fulfil those obligations, because there’s a lot of people that could use the funding, especially now, that we’re not able to help.”

The church and the groups it supports have been hit with a double-whammy, as St. Anne has had to also halt its regular perogy sales. It sells roughly 72,000 perogies annually, which are made by a group of 60 volunteers, many of whom are seniors that are highly susceptible to COVID-19, Balagus says.

“Every few weeks we’ll make 500- to 600-dozen perogies that are sold. We typically sell them for $6 a dozen, so you’re looking at a 6,000-dozen average — that’s about $35,000 that goes and helps organizations in our community that we don’t have access to any more,” says Balagus, who adds that the church is looking for a way to restart the sales if Winnipeg’s response to COVID-19 improves.

Winnipeggers who are missing out on fall suppers in the city may venture out to the countryside in 2020.

Normally, the Zhoda dinner attracts 350 to 450 people on a Sunday evening, an impressive feat considering Zhoda and the surrounding area, the rural municipality of Stuartburn, has a population around 1,600. Tysoski says many visitors come from nearby Steinbach, but some make the trip from Winnipeg and she expects them to return on Oct. 4 for the 2020 drive-thru version.

“I know a lot of people in Winnipeg look forward to our chicken and our dinners over the years,” she says. “I’ve heard plenty of people say they’re going to have a roadside picnic.”

The Zhoda fall supper is among several similar events that take place every year in neighbouring communities. Fall suppers are also held in places like Gardenton, Sundown and Tolstoi, and organizers meet annually to co-ordinate so the events aren’t held on the same day.

They have been popular in the past for those who attend and enjoy the buffets, but seeing old friends from the area who volunteer to prepare all the food is also a big part of the event, Tysoski says.

“We prepare a lot of the stuff ahead of time. We’ll get 20 volunteers and we’ll make perogies one night or we’ll make the meatballs or the cabbage rolls,” she says. “The community gets together and everybody volunteers and helps out and we make an evening out of it. We’re pretty much at the fall supper from Friday through Sunday preparing everything.

“This year is going to be a little different, something new for us… I think it’s going to be close to the same amount of work.”

Organizing the event hasn’t been as easy as in the past, though. COVID-19 regulations made purchasing and receiving the huge amount of chicken for the dinner far more difficult than a regular autumn, Tysoski says.

Manitoba meat processors, including those that package chicken, are forbidden to allow people who don’t work at plants inside, so she couldn’t pick up the chicken in Blumenort as she would normally. She eventually found a wholesaler in Winnipeg who would deliver the chicken to Zhoda.

“You don’t realize (the pandemic) affects everything. It’s a ripple effect,” Tysoski says.

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter:@AlanDSmall