Serving At the Corned Beef Dinner

For any non local followers let me start like this.  We are a small town 4-H club and by small town I mean when a gathering needs to take place the local Legion Hall is 1 of only 2 available places in town available to use.  So when we want to have our 4-H meetings outside of our home we usually use the Legion Hall.  

We could always use the Fire Hall (our other meeting option) but I feel as a club we benefit more from using the Legion Hall.  Why, not just because its convenient with the Hubby being a member and it allows us enough space to work on multiple projects in the same location plus supplies kitchen use as well because the fire hall offers those same advantages (minus the Hubby's membership).  But I think the best reason we use  the Legion Hall is because the Legion Hall benefits just as much as we benefit from us when we use their hall.  That in itself is a benefit to what we are teaching our 4-members every meeting. 

 

Of course there are the material benefits involved for example in return for the use of the Hall our first 2 community service projects both benefited the Legion (as a thank you) and we do all we can to help out when we use the hall like extra cleaning.  Each year we cohost the Flag Retiring Ceremony with the Legion and Girl Scouts.  We also cleared out their garage in return that we got to use it as part of our Halloween Party.

What is not seen in all the material benefits is how much it is benefiting our members by teaching them responsibly and respect for what they have and what they earn.  I'm sure most of our members don't realize that they are getting this benefit and to some it is just a location for all of us to meet but someday when they look back I hope they know how lucky they were to have the legion hall for all the important lessons they didn't even know they were learning.  So for that I can only say Thank You James S. Moore Post #167!

Photo credit to the James S. Moore Post #167

So with that in mind another great benefit for us and the American Legion is when the Legion puts on its annual Corned Beef Dinner.  For the last 3 years the Legion has graciously allowed us to end our big Basket Party (funding for our community service) at their dinner and in return the club will help out with the dinner.  With the 2 combined happenings the dinner has increased in guests steadily for the last 3 years you can see it really is a win, win for both of us.

All of our members (missing one in photo) who worked the Legion's Dinner 

Like all big dinners the Legions dinner starts with the prep work, thankfully we do not have to do the cooking but we do help with the table set up and getting everything in the dining area set.  Usually there are other helpers there to do the place setting but this year the younger members were right in the mix getting a important how to set a table lesson and yes they did have to go back and fix any oopsies to the correct setting placement.  Another lesson learned I'm sure.

It didn't take long before there was a Packed House!  Every seat in the Legion was full and guests were waiting at the door.  These kids id not let this deter them all and just kept right on serving and cleaning up to keep everyone in  hot fresh food.

Of course not every member should be carrying hot food near paying guests so our younger members were busy selling tickets for our basket party, serving desert and helping wash dishes.   For our youngest member it was also a big learning lesson as she had never seen such a commotion of food and people serving.  She did not shy away or fear any of it and just kept right on selling tickets.   Her best comment of the night "wow I guess its lots of hungry people" and boy was she right with all the guests.  I think it must have been a record serving for the Legion as they sold out with in an hour and I know it was record ticket sales for the 4-H Basket Party.

They all worked very hard and some of them even hung around till the very end for clean up.  It really was a job well done by members and whether they knew it or not they learned a lot at that dinner be it was just basic table setting or dish washing, waitress/waiter skill or sales skill they all learned and that's the importance of this.  I'm sure they all learned a little lesson in communicating with others as well.

For that we again say Thank You to the James S. Moor Post #167 and its members for allowing the members of the Team Clover 4-H Club to be at your Corned Beef Dinner