Happy Anniversary St. Anne’s Anglican Church – We’re Still Cookin’!
Written by Michael & Tammy
St. Anne’s is recognized for our commitment to the community, for our pancake supper every February, our Christmas bazaar, our unique cobble stone church structure on Commissioners Road West in Byron and for our outstanding parishioners and church family. But did you know that this year we are celebrating. This fall we are 60 years young and still counting, in our renowned food service at the Western Fair.
In 1949, a small group of parishioners from St Anne’s Anglican Church in Byron met to discuss the lack of good, wholesome food available to the hundreds of exhibitors and workers at London’s Western Fair. In those days the Fair had a predominantly agricultural focus featuring livestock and crop judging as well as a growing midway.
This group put together a short menu of wholesome lunches and dinners including roast beef or turkey dinner for seventy five cents, sandwiches, and pie and coffee for a quarter. The booth consisted of a few tables and a simple canvas shelter.
Over the past fifty-nine years the project has evolved and grown into the current eight hundred square foot tent serving three still home cooked meals a day as well as an overnight menu to accommodate the overnight residents and workers. Fast food appeared early in the project to accommodate the Fair’s tens of thousands of visitors.
Now operating twenty four hours a day, St Anne’s Western Fair booth offers the widest diversity of food under one roof at the Fair.
Consistently located close to the agricultural buildings who are residents and patrons it was born to serve, St Anne’s booth has moved only a few meters from its original location over the past sixty years. The agricultural building is gone now, replaced by a new, world class facility south of York Street but the big blue and white St Anne’s tent is still there, a Western Fair landmark.
With all of the changes that have come in the past sixty years, and the dynamic evolution of the Fair itself, St Anne’s goals have remained consistent.
These are:
- Outreach: Operate a project that will engage and challenge not only the St Anne’s parish but an army of volunteers from the community. Of the almost three hundred people involved in the event, about thirty-five percent are from outside the parish.
- Service: A tradition of offering consistently safe, wholesome food to the workers at the Fair as well as the visitors to this London institution continues unchanged.
- Profit: All profits from the booth are devoted towards the maintenance and outreach goals of St Anne’s church, as well as a tithe devoted to community charities including St Paul’s food bank and the men’s mission.
Volunteers are the backbone of this annual project. The countless hours that are donated to this event include obvious tasks such as working at the booth; while other behind the scenes roles such as cooking at the parish hall, baking pies, doing laundry, cleaning dishes, assembling the tent, post –fair clean up, and so much more are invisible to the delectable taste of a hot roast beef dinner with a slice of our most famous pie to finish off.
This year from September 11 – 20, come celebrate with us! We’d love to see you and it would be our pleasure to serve you!!Western Fair News (2008)
A Bouquet of Thanks from your Rector – rain or shine, the ministry of hospitality was offered along with tasty eggs and bacon, pies or fries!
At our Western Fair volunteer appreciation party I was surprised with a beautiful bouquet of roses and kind words for my ongoing ministry and support of St. Anne’s Western Fair Food Booth. It is a pleasure to work beside you in the various shifts and lead devotions in the parish hall on the Sundays we keep the kitchen open to meet the demand for food at the fair... I would like in turn to send a very large bouquet of thanks, to everyone who worked so hard for God and for St. Anne’s, to serve food and good will at our Western Fair Food Booth.
Joyfully and generously many hands combine to take on this ministry of service. To Mike and to our conveners, Gerry, Bob and Joan, Rick, Walter, Glenn and Linda, Marg, Angela and Bob, as well as Dave overseeing the raising of the tent and Gerry steer heading transportation thank you! To the St. Anne’s family, to Jamie and Nancy for a great volunteer appreciation party, and all our extended family of helpers in the community, thank you! To God be the Glory and to you be our thanks.
When Bishop Bob and his wife, Pat visited St. Anne’s Sunday Sept. 7, we sent him home with a cherry pie. I was in the Diocese for a meeting the next day and the whole diocesan staff was enjoying that pie!
One very special customer who returned this year was the husband of Shirley Storey, Shirley’s sudden death at the Rectory St. train tracks she was crossing on her way to perform with her family in the rodeo, sent shock waves through the fair workers and London community. We ministered to her family and this year, her husband returned to our booth to thank us again for the crucial support we offered at such an incredibly difficult time. May God continue to bless our ministry.
In your service,
Canon Janet Lynall
Here is a letter written by an appreciative St. Anne’s Western Fair Food Booth customer
Western Fair Dining
We just wanted to let you know we feel that you provide a very valuable service to visitors at the Western Fair - affordable, nutritious food with an element of friendliness. We have made St. Anne's one of our first stops for many years and had our oldest daughter out with us yesterday. We also were impressed with your outreach - the card indicating "please visit us on Sunday". We have been members of our present church for several decades and realize that outreach is very important. We are sure that your hand of friendship will (and has done so) result in many people being helped to join a group of caring Christians. We have noted over the years that a reason people give for not attending a church is that they do not feel welcome, despite signs saying "welcome". It is fitting that you combine the hand of friendship with food, which is comforting and nourishing. We are also mindful that the money generated goes to your charities. Please pass on our thanks to all the fine people whom we have seen cooking, serving and cleaning year after year. They are dedicated and the Lord knows that they are making a difference in the world. Keep up the fine, wonderful work!!!!
Yours in Christ, Ron & Madeline
PS - we look forward to your hosting your 60th year next year!!!! And -- the new location is a good one and yet still near the old location