No one does chicken like the Sisters of Notre Dame.
End of discussion. Well, actually, beginning of discussion.
Because as soon as the topic of the SND Chicken Dinner is introduced, the stories follow. They usually start off, “My family’s been going to the dinners for fill-in-the-blank years…” And often end, if they end, with the reliving of some highly unusual occurrence that prevented a person from coming one year. Or maybe two years. But never more than that. This is not an event people miss.
Calling this annual fundraiser a chicken dinner is akin to calling Disney a kiddy park. Fifty years in the making, it is an event of epic stature. No one disputes this. What is debated among the banquet’s most faithful, though, is the identity of our epic’s hero. Is it Sr. Mary Antonee Pfenning or Sister Margaret Hess, the wizards behind the curtain making it all happen so seemingly seamlessly? Is it Larry Divoky, the poultry farmer with a spark of an idea and a very special sauce? Is it Tom Smoky, 36-year pit master and teacher of the multi-man rack turn? Or perhaps it is the committee of prayer sisters who have kept the rain at bay against all Northeast Ohio odds—well, at least most years.
“Mary is in charge one Sunday,” Sr. Margaret explains. “And Joseph is in charge of the other Sunday.” A statue of the appointed saint is put on display the full week prior to the event. No one will say if one (the Blessed Virgin or the devoted carpenter) has done better than the other over the years. Probably best we don’t try to pick just one event hero either.
History of the Fundraiser
The SND benefit dinners actually started four score ago, in 1932. Initially, the main course was chicken—baked, not barbecued. In 1953, the sisters made the switch to ham dinners. Money raised at the dinners helped to pay for building projects in the early days. Later, proceeds were allocated to an education fund for the sisters. Today, there are 332 Notre Dame sisters, 160 residing in Chardon, benefitting from this fund. It has paid for a myriad of degrees and allowed the sisters to change ministries, and learn and access new technology.
In 1962, the dinner moved from the Castle on Ansel to its present location in Chardon. That very first chicken barbecue was served out of the main boiler room. Yes, we said the boiler room. Classic Catholic. On that first Sunday, the sisters served 1,200 dinners. On the second Sunday, the crowd almost tripled to 3,400. That would suggest some pretty happy customers got to talking. Unfortunately, the sisters had to turn some folks away that year. But it was the only year the sisters would run out of food. Well, there was a year (1965) when the event was cancelled. The last batch of charcoal never got hot enough and a handful of folks had the option of taking an uncooked dinner home or getting their money back.
Feeding the Masses
Otherwise, there was always enough food to feed the masses. Does that remind anyone else of the New Testament’s four Gospels that recorded the miracle of loaves and fishes? Ours just may be the modern day version of the biblical tale. Think about it. The good sisters—with the help of their families, friends and students—have served 461,963 dinners over the past five decades. That’s a lot of chicken. And rolls, butter, apple sauce, slaw, chips and pie. Not to mention unlimited beverages.
Sr. Margaret enjoys doing the math. “We serve about 1,000 people an hour,” she’ll tell you. “The highest number we had was 14,000 in 1991.” She’ll detail how the sisters cut, not just countless slabs of butter, but the wax paper squares the butter pats sit on. And then she’ll tell you about the pie-making process. The sisters prepare, bake (or in more recent years, buy), rack, carry, slice, plate, and then rack and carry again about 2,500 pies each year. Sr. Margaret puts the grand total over the 50 years at 59,434.
Stayed tuned for Parts II and III of this story. Coming soon…..
