SHELBURNE FALLS — While the Shelburne Falls Kiwanis Club has hosted countless dinners over the years, Saturday’s meal will mark something special — the club’s first sit-down dinner since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There’s a glue that holds together communities … that’s been so absent in these last two years,” Kiwanis Club member Mark Burton explained. “Now, we begin to re-bond as things become a little bit looser.”
The Kiwanis Club’s annual sugar on snow dinner will return to the Shelburne-Buckland Community Center, located at 53 Main St., on Saturday. Burton expects more than 200 attendees between the 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. serving times.
The meal — consisting of corned beef and cabbage, vegetables and rolls — will be prepared in-house by club members and served family-style. Dessert will be crushed ice topped with warm maple syrup, an homage to the maple sugaring that peaks in March.
In past years, Burton said, club members would deliver heaps of real snow in the back of a pickup truck to use for the sugar on snow desserts.
“Back in those days, you could find really clean, fresh snow,” he said.
Now, with the dinner occurring in late March, the tradition continues with crushed ice in place of snow.
The Shelburne Falls Kiwanis Club aims to host three dinners each year — the sugar on snow dinner, typically held in February; a strawberry shortcake dinner in June; and a harvest dinner complete with apple crisp in the fall.
“There’s a lot of passing of bowls and sharing, and in a lot of cases, people sitting next to family, or friends or strangers,” Burton said. “It’s a real community event.”
Members of the Mohawk Trail Regional School Key Club will volunteer at the dinner, which Burton sees as both a leadership opportunity and a chance for students and older attendees to connect.
“(Attendees) get to interact with young people from the high school (and) it enables our Key Club members to do some civic reciprocation,” Burton explained “These things are small, but they’re incredibly human.”
Proceeds from the dinner will fund scholarships for Mohawk Trail Regional School students and defray the cost of other school events.
Tickets for the dinner are $15 for adults and $8 for children under age 12. Community members can reserve tickets for a 5 p.m. or 7 p.m. seating by calling Mark Burton at 413-625-8387.