Here’s a Salute to The Melrose Chapel Strawberry ‘Stemmers’!

I love this time of year in that we have reached the “Strawberry Season”. One place to enjoy the season is Melrose Chapel United Methodist Church where they will be holding their 144th Annual Strawberry Festival this Saturday, June 2.  The event will run from 3 p.m. until 7 p.m.  The Festival is held at the church hall located at 3600 Payson Road in Quincy. The Strawberry Festival features wonderful strawberry desserts including a cup of strawberries, strawberry shortcakes, strawberry sundaes, and strawberry supreme, which is a combination of a short-cake and a sundae.

Sandwiches, chips, drinks, and bake goods will also be available and you may dine at the church or carry out. My favorite is just strawberries and vanilla ice cream.

It is so easy to over-indulge at these kinds of events, but think about the amount of preparation that is needed to prepare these delicacies. One must order the strawberries, have them delivered, then de-stem all the berries, wash them and slice them if need be as well.

It takes time and volunteers to do just that. Those volunteers are called “Stemmers” and they will take a few hours this Friday to prepare some 480 quarts of fresh strawberries for Saturday’s event.

So when you dive in to that delectable dish Saturday, remember those “Stemmers” for their hard work in making the 144^th anniversary of the Melrose Chapel United Methodist Church Strawberry Festival a huge fundraising success for the church.