Return of the Friendship Lunch

It’s taken a while since Covid canceled so many beloved traditions for things to get back to normal, but today was the return of Friendship lunch. This holiday party was started by 12 women, sometime in the 80’s. One is my friend Judy Woody who I sat with today and she was trying to recall exactly what year it began. If Diane Wade reads this she might remember and let us know.

The idea behind the lunch was, for friends who often bought gifts for each other, that they obviously did not need, to instead just get together for lunch and all double to cost of the lunch. They would each put the name of a charity in the hat and then one name was drawn and all the extra money from the lunch was donated to that charity.

Leslie Garrison decided that it would be a good idea tor revive the tradition so she put together a committee at Labor Day and got it going. There were at least 125 women at Hope Valley for lunch.

It was great to see so many friends I have not seen in a long time. I had a fun table with Jan, Judy and Deanna, and a new friend of Judy’s Dale and then Deborah Hertzog and her friends Barbara and Almasa. Deb has gone to church with us for years so she introduced me to her friends as “Her family’s favorite scripture reader.” She told me they like when I do the voices and act out the stories when I read. I told her people usually said they liked when I read because I am loud.

Renée Hodges, who was in charge with Leslie, called Angela Sanderson up to draw the names of the two charities we were going to be donating to this year. Hellen Tharington was the first winner and she had chosen Emmanuel Iglesias Food Pantry, which is supported by our church so we were thrilled. The second winner was Elizabeth Wiener and her charity was the second Century fund of the Rotary Club in Durham.

It was a happy occasion at a time when so many charities need help and none of us need more stuff. I was happy to spend time with friends.