Strawberry Festival June 2009

The Smithfield United Church of Christ Strawberry Festival returns to Strawberry Way – with strawberry shortcake, strawberry sundaes, barbecued ham, kielbasa and kraut, haluski, pierogies, and soft drinks on the menu.

Talk about offering extravagant hospitality to all!
Strawberry Way is full of "all" with lines going in both directions:

There's the Smithfield Church's strawberry desserts line
(for some, make that the strawberry "lunch" line)
with its seasoned and well-coordinated team hard at work. Sundae or shortcake? With or without ice cream? Whipped cream on top?

You only have a twenty? Not a problem.

(Except for the fact that we're running low on ones, fives, and tens again.)

And there's the equally popular Smithfield Cafe line.

At least one festival attendee has to wait and hope that someone will be returning from the lines with a doggy bag!

While up on the wall the ever present Andys (Warhol and Carnegie) keep an eye on the proceedings. Would Warhol be signaling for kielbasa, kraut, and a strawberry shortcake with the works?

The music of Horace Turner and his jazz quartet once again calls out to passers by and is almost continuous,

drawing an ever growing crowd of hungry business people, shoppers, and passers-by to Strawberry Way,

It's now past 1:00 and folks are returning to work and the business of the day. But whether we're at street level looking up Strawberry Way or looking down from the 8th floor of the "Gimbel's" garage,

we might well say to all of the Smithfieldians who made the event such a great success, "Well done, good and faithful servants."

  – through you and me!