A Town Potluck Dinner Brings Out Wendellites–Of Course!

We drove by and saw all of the cars, and then we saw couples, holding dishes, walking toward the Wendell Town Hall. We must have missed the email, but for sure, something big was going on last night. It was the town’s Harvest Supper, an annual event that brings hundreds of townspeople together for a potluck dinner. We hurried home to check the Wendell email, where all of the details were revealed.

Spending time in a town like Wendell makes you wish your own town was as cool and as community-minded as this one.  I can’t imagine drawing such a capacity crowd to any event held in South Deerfield. We are just not as friendly and as interested in engaging…our focus is elsewhere we are not a community like this. We hurried back, made some pesto noodles, and came back to join the throng at town hall.

Up here, it’s a sea of ponytails and grey hair, and young people dressed in hats and old friends calling out to each other. They have an email list and share things like notices about lost cellphones, and requests for rides to Logan, and invitations to cozy potluck dinners like these.

The difference is that Wendellites want to come to dinner together. They want to greet their neighbors, try each other’s pies, and share a table. They come out from their wood-heated homes bearing casseroles and listen to a finance committee member talk about re-districting. They write letters to try and keep their state rep, and try the soup that’s being served out in the parking lot. They listen to each other over dinner and of course they come to the town supper…everybody is here.