Lions Poor Folks Dinner March 9

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

“Since things have been too quiet in the Big Wal­nut area lately, the Sun­bury Lions will present their once’t a year Poor Folks Din­ner,” said Lion Dan Shaw. “The meal will con­sist mostly of corn bread and beans, and maybe some chicken soup for those who don’t like beans.”

Shaw said the annual affair was started around 1985 by the then Big Wal­nut Lions.

“Those Lions were look­ing for a fundraiser, when some­one sug­gested beans,” Shaw said. “Nat­u­rally every­body laughed, because beans are funny. After some dis­cus­sion it was decided to go ahead with this project, but what to call it?”

Shaw said at first it was sug­gested to call the fundraiser the “Poor Man’s Din­ner”, but one of the “more polit­i­cally cor­rect” Lions said they couldn’t do that, because it left out women. So some­body else sug­gested “Poor Folks Din­ner”. 
 
“That same per­son said: Wouldn’t that make the poor peo­ple feel bad?” Shaw explained. “The deci­sion was made that since 90 per­cent of the peo­ple in and around Sun­bury were raised on beans, it cer­tainly wouldn’t make any­one feel bad. Thus it became the Poor Folks Dinner.”

The Poor Folks Din­ner was first served at the Masonic Tem­ple on Morn­ing Street, moved to the Old Bap­tist Church on Cherry Street and finally to Town Hall on the Sun­bury Square, where it is held today.



“In all their wis­dom, the Lions have decided that in order to keep the air in the vicin­ity of Sun­bury clean and pure, they are only serv­ing envi­ron­men­tally friendly, low-gas beans,” Shaw added.

The Sun­bury Lions Club Poor Folks Din­ner will be held from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., Sat­ur­day, March 9, at Sun­bury Town Hall.

The tick­ets are $5 for all the beans you care to eat (Shaw said it’s a really cheap way to enter­tain your friends). Tick­ets are avail­able from any Sun­bury Lion or at the door.
 
Pro­ceeds go to the many char­i­ties sup­ported by mem­bers of the Sun­bury Lions Club.

Posted by Gary Henery on Feb 20 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.