The Eagle

Chicken Sunday

Plymouth Rotary Club prepares to serve 8,500 dinners during Fall Festival

The committee members responsible for the famous Rotary Chicken Barbeque dinners served during the Plymouth Fall Festival are sporting smiles lately as ticket sales for the charity fundraiser are already selling quickly.

The festival will take place Sept. 6,7, and 8, this year. As it has for nearly 70 years, the community event will take place the weekend following Labor Day. Last year, nearly 80,000 people attended the weekend festival and one of the highlights is traditionally the chicken barbeque, the Rotary Club event that began the decades-old tradition.

Rotary Barbeque Committee Chairman Eric Joy said he and the committee members haven’t made any drastic changes to the long-time barbeque production this year, other than adding what they hope will be more efficiency and quality control. The committee, which includes Rotary members Todd Raska; Doug Willett; Bari Lizsey and Kirk and Debbie Sivic have been meeting regularly for weeks and communicating nearly daily as ‘Chicken Sunday’ nears. The committee members were determined, Joy said, that there would be no price increase for the dinners this year. The meals will remain at $17 if purchased in advance and $20 if purchased at the door. Dinners are served at The Gathering, across from Kellogg Park in downtown Plymouth from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. or until sold out. As usual, carry out dinners are available at West Middle School.

The behind-the-scenes effort to produce nearly 9,000 chicken dinners in a single afternoon takes enormous effort and organization. Each of the committee members usually takes responsibility for one or two facets of the event and each behind the scenes job requires time, effort and attention to detail.

Annually, club volunteers gather just before the event to clean and sanitize the grills used to cook the famous chicken dinners while another group prepares the ‘secret spice’ mixture used during grilling.

Committee members also marshal the crews constructing the huge fire pits in the parking lot behind The Gathering and ready the charcoal for the early morning “smoke eaters” who start lighting the pits as early as 7 a.m.

The Chicken Barbeque usually generates about $50,000 for the Rotary Club after all expenses are paid, all of which is awarded to local community projects. The Noon Rotary Club awarded more than $34,000 in scholarships to local students and donated significantly to multiple civic and community projects last year.