7th Annual Parish Picnic

02/23/2022

Council: 114 - BANGOR

Project Description:

On July 25th, the Pine Cone Council 114 helped to sponsor the seventh annual parish wide family picnic. Sponsored by the Pastoral Council. The first of July our six churches started announcing the picnic and since it was an outdoor event, we were not going to let the pandemic stop us. The Knights volunteered to grill the hotdogs and cheeseburgers, set up the tables and chairs and finally gave $350 toward the food and supplies for the event. Word of mouth was still spreading right up to the event but unfortunately the weather report was promoting a rain day that was getting worse as the days lead up to the event. Monsignor Andrew Dubois was consulted whether to cancel the event or do what we can to host, without a doubt he told us to move forward. Brothers Keith Forbes, Kris Clark, Chris Hayden, Walter Shannon and his wife, helped set up two large tents to help should rain hit. The crew set these up after the after the 8:30 Mass to start setting up tables and chairs as well.
It was a great start to get everything ready for the 200 parishioners that would join us later that day. The grill was ready to go and Jake Marquis brought a canopy to help keep the grill and grillers dry. Keith Forbes filled the propane tanks. Brothers Terry Hannan and his wife Cozy soon arrived with potato salad. Blake took on the buffet, getting drinks ready while Terry started slicing the watermelon and Andy Fecteau made the lemonade. Several other brothers soon arrived to set up the games, canopy and remaining buffet tables. Each brought something to share whether bottled waters, chips, salads or desserts.
Around 3pm Brother Marvin Garrick, lead Grillman, along with Frank Jordan, Bill Siemerling, John Barry and Romeo El Chaer arrived to get the grill ready for our main course. Blake, Andy, and Terry moved to the kitchen ready to assemble the hamburgers, cheese burgers and hot dogs so they could be passed to our guests as smooth as possible. The rest of the Knights finished setting up some outside games like pop the balloon, cake walk, rubber ducky and horseshoes as well as got the trash and recycling containers ready.
We were officially started at 4pm but many people arrived around 3:45. We had a good amount of hot dogs and hamburgers ready for that initial rush. The buffet had volunteer servers from all three groups serving baked beans, chips, salads, watermelon, cookies, drinks and other treats. Msgr Dubois, Father Augustine, Father Murray and Father Roland were both there to show support and have a great meal. The crowd was big and as an observer I could tell they were excited to socialize and watch the families in the games. After the first hour, things slowed down at the buffet and we could let the parishioners serve themselves. Brothers Ed Beaulieu and Paul Bouchard volunteered in the fun with a 50/50 raffle.
The food did not run out so the crowd was encouraged to get seconds and get their fill. Many other knights participated in the event and helped with the clean-up. Ruth Rogers from the church office took lots of pictures and the kids had fun playing with each other and playing outside games. A few left overs were delivered to the God Parent house, so none of the food was wasted.
The event went by fast and at 6pm we had a great crowd of Knights and other parishioners helping to pick up tables chairs and trash as well as clean up. Brothers Phil, Blake, Andy, Keith Forbes, Ed and Bill Sjoined in the clean up.
We counted about 200 participants and know we had participation from all six churches in our parish.
We cooked around a 180 hot dogs and 150 hamburgers, the crowd ate all the beans, hamburgers and salads that were brought. We had a great day, with great friends and church family and can’t wait to continue this event annually.
Respectfully submitted by EJ Hikel