NEWS

Whooowweee. What a ride!

Ok so we’ve got to tell the you total….

But first. THANK YOU !!

Thank you all for coming out in droves.

Thanks to Dan, Chris, and Terry as always for being there for us and making this happen.

So many things behind the scenes…

Thank you to the Hillsdale Fire Department, who picked up their steak dinners and while heading home found an abandoned car leaking gas on route 23 near Catamount. They quickly called themselves in mutual aid and handled the situation for us. Thank you.

Thank you to The Egremont Police Department for assisting with traffic and stepping in here and there.

Speaking of stepping in.

Thanks to Egremont Police Chief Laforest for stepping to help scoop ice cream for “a bit”. Who knew it would be about 3 hours or so ?!.. Thanks Chief

Thank you to all the members, spouse and family members and friends who helped us before during and after…

Thanks again to all of you!

Now. We understand there are some apologies in order.. We’ve mentioned a time or 2 that we are not professionals and this is a new learning curve every single year. As much as we learn from previous years. We take notes, make notes, check back on things and try to do things better every year.

We have to apologize for keep many of you waiting as long as you did. We do apologize for running out of salads and ice cream and needing to wait as they were prepped. We flat out ran out of potatoes towards the end of the night. We almost made it. But running out is running out and we left some folks without. We have made our notes. We.re already working on other plans and ideas. We will be back next year and we hope you will as well.

Now. Thank you and apologies behind us… I’m sure some are still frustrated by it. But please bear with us as we tell you more.

As a community both local and Northeast wide. You have all come together in the passed. Our best year was October 2001 when the world needed support all around. There was much respect for any and all in the EMS and First responder world. You all came out and we slammed out 511 dinners that year ! Since then we’ve flirted around the mid 400’s but fell shy every year..

This year…. After the last few years I guess we all feel like we need a hug and Holy Smokes did you !

578 !

578 steak dinners cranked out. And to be honest there may have been more that didn’t get counted with a slip.

578 dinners in less then 4 hours. (About 3-1/2 hours really)

196 people sat down for dinner

While 382 were take out !

382 take outs ….. let that settle for a moment…

We’ll back a up a second and say… ask some of the best restaurants around what there busy nights are or the craziest night they’ve had…

They have a few more hours and not those numbers. I’ve asked quite a few…

We had 125 salads pre packed and ready. Same with ice cream. Poof gone….. trying out best to keep up and replenish along with the crews keeping inside moving along..

Steaks…. The precut and ready to grill amount was already quite a bit higher then usual because we had a hunch…. Sheesh. Cut another shell……. And another shell. Flat out run out of salad. Rifle through Terrys kitchen like hungry teenagers….

Thanks Terry for letting us borrow your salad stock as well as a few more shells of beef.

Somewhere near 700 pounds of beef,

Over 300 pounds of potatoes

An entire field of lettuce ?

To be honest we thought we were over stocked as we usually try to be.

You all slayed us. We are grateful, we are humbled, we are apologetic, and we are exhausted.

Please come back and see us next year. Hopefully we will all be more “ready” willing and able to sit down inside again.

Oh yes. And the closest guess !?

The steak dinner rookie….Chief Laforest threw out a wild A— number and said 615. He was closer then everyone else. Nice work Chief.

With gratitude

Your Egremont Fire Department