“Probably $10,” the 11-year-old Harrisonburg resident said.

Meanwhile, if it’s Laotian egg rolls on the block, Tanna Meadows, 45, of Elkton, is convinced the outcome has been decided before the first bid is made.

“I would definitely win,” she said.

While the big auction bucks are spent on quilts inside of the Rockingham County Fairgrounds exhibit hall, relief sale food seems to get everyone reaching for their wallets.

If it’s not kettle corn, Brunswick stew or homemade pies, it’s doughnuts — about 12,000 are sold a year — international fare or an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast that gets dollars exchanging hands.

And it adds up: The 48th annual sale, held Friday and Saturday, raised more than $340,000 for , which provides natural disaster response, community development and peace work in more than 50 countries.

“They’re really trying to help [people] change their lives, not just imposing their agenda,” said Jerry Holsopple, noting how the committee will buy animals for communities to raise.

Holsopple, 57, of Harrisonburg, might have been as well traveled as any attendee at this year’s sale, having visited 32 countries. Many times, he produced videos to document relief efforts.

He joined others from the city’s Immanuel Mennonite Church on Saturday to serve 460 tamales, which were on the fast track to being sold out just after noon.

The Laotian offerings, as usual, were also a big hit, led by the egg rolls.

“They’re so good,” Meadows said.

With Mennonite relief sales, you never know what you’re going to get.

Sneary’s mother, Shannon, grew up on one in Kansas, where she took a liking to veranika, a German cottage cheese-filled dumpling treat.

Others tout the relief sale in Indiana, a larger event that lists a fried dough treat known as Elephant Ears among the food choices.

But there are no losers, especially since you don’t need to bid on the food.

“You see a lot of people from your community, and it’s a great cause as well,” Meadows said.

Article courtesy of the Daily News Record, Oct. 5, 2014. ˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř editor’s note: The chair of the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale is 1999 EMU alumnus Dave Rush. Grounds chair is David Mininger ’74. Dozens of other EMU staff, faculty and alumni volunteered their time to make the sale a success, including , quoted in this article, who is professor in .

Sunny skies prevailed and temperatures topped out at 85 degrees by the height of the sale early Saturday afternoon. Activities began Friday evening, Oct. 4, at the with nearly 1,000 volunteers giving of their time, talents and toil.

This year’s sale netted about $303,456 for the worldwide relief and service program of the . Last year’s effort raised a record $307,000.

Declared a huge success

“It was a great day and a huge success, thanks to the volunteers and persons who came to spend their money to support the work of MCC,” said Dave Rush of Harrisonburg, relief sale chair.

“We expect that once all reports are finalized that more funds will be forwarded to MCC than last year, as some of our operating expenses were down and we received some additional sponsor money this year,” he added.

The money raised included $25,404 – down slightly from last year’s $30,737 – from the annual “Penny Power” project, in which area congregations, schools, homes and businesses collect coins and currency in large water jugs for weeks and bring their containers to the sale for sorting and tabulating done by employees of .

in Harrisonburg headed the list of 37 participating congregations with $3,057.76, followed by with $2,262.91 and , Lyndhurst, with $1,761.57.

The final Penny Power total is expected to be higher with some matching funds and other gifts expected to come in, according to Rush.

Penny Power funds will be divided equally between Mennonite Central Committee and . The money will assist partner organizations in numerous places around the world that are helping to meet the needs of thousands of displaced people, supporting work in places like Ecuador, Haiti, Indonesia, Jordan and Thailand.

$5,000 more raised by auction of handcrafted items

The annual auction of handmade quilts, wall hangings, knotted comforters and afghans, artwork and wooden handcrafted items accounted for $117,603 of the total funds raised, up more than $5,000 over last year.

The highest bid item at the auction was a “Lincoln’s Platform” wall hanging, appliqued and pieced by Carolyn Bontrager of Harrisonburg and quilted by Charlotte Swope of Linville that went for $4,500.

A 90” x 108” off-white feathers and star quilt completed by 94-year-old Anna May Burkholder of Waynesboro took the highest quilt bid of $4,000. Burkholder has made a quilt every year except one since the sale began in 1967; this was her last. Sixteen quilts went for $1,000 or more.

A Shaker-style slant top walnut writing desk on frame, made of walnut with oiled finish by Norman Lambert of North Carolina, was sold for $3,500.

The homemade glazed donut operation got under way at 3 a.m. Saturday, with 14,500 of the confectionary delights sold out by half past noon.

Other popular food items included 180 gallons of Brunswick stew made on the premises by members of and Mountain View Mennonite churches in Augusta County, 3,500 barbecued chicken halves, chili, Laotian and Indian dishes, chicken corn soup, homemade potato chips, caramel popcorn, apple butter and fresh cider.

“We had a great Friday evening, followed by a beautiful, although very warm, Saturday,” Rush said. “I saw a lot of people having a fun time together. It was a great experience in community-building.”

And that’s what gives relief sale chairman Dave a major rush.

Phil grew up in Arcola, Ill., where his father owned a farm-machinery business. He enrolled in ˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř (EMU) for 1972-73, married fellow undergraduate Loretta Kuhns in August 1974, and soon left EMU to hold a paying job (he marketed potato chips for six months while Loretta finished her degree in elementary education).

In early 1975, Phil became director of development at Lancaster Mennonite High School and that July he and Loretta became parents.

After a couple of years on that job, Illinois Mennonite conference approached Phil about being a pastor. Phil agreed “to test the whether I wanted to be a pastor or not” by arranging to be the quarter-time associate pastor for East Bend Mennonite Church in Fisher, Ill. He initially shadowed the lead minister, but eventually he did his own preaching, visitations, weddings and funerals. The remainder of his time he worked as an  assistant manager for his father’s business, which entailed a two-hour round-trip between the church in Fisher and the business in Arcola, Ill.

Phil felt comfortable in his pastoral role—as a teenager during the Jesus-movement era, he led Bible studies in high school and had helped start weekend coffee houses. He had taken Bible classes at EMU.

Just before the end of his second year at East Bend, Phil accepted a senior pastor position at Science Ridge Mennonite Church in Sterling Ill., a comparatively large congregation with 250 to 275 active members. After two years, he often preached twice on Sunday mornings, adding a message for a small congregation on the opposite side of town.

His last role as a full-time pastor was at Olive Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Ind., for four years, charged with working at church growth.

After 11 years of being a minister, Phil headed back to EMU in 1987 to be a fundraiser for the college that he had not yet graduated from. (He finished his bachelor’s degree in management and organizational development through EMU’s Adult Degree Completion Program in 2002.)

“For me, it was a short leap to go from the ministry to development,” he says. “Having grown up in a business-oriented family, I feel comfortable with money matters. I know there is a place in God’s kingdom for people who have the ability to make money. And I value people who have been good managers, good stewards, of their resources.”

Phil says he acts as a facilitator for people to apply their resources to satisfying ends: “I am not just going out and begging for money—I help people to articulate what’s deeply important to them. I try to help them align their dreams and goals—their stories—with those of an organization that also has the common good at heart.”

Not a person to “preach and not practice” his views, Phil is a major donor of volunteer time and his personal money to many causes, including EMU, Park View Mennonite Church, Mennonite Central Committee, and the United Way.

For more than seven years, Phil has chaired the annual Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale at the Rockingham County Fair Grounds on the edge of Harrisonburg, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for Mennonite Central Committee’s work. From 1996 through 2001, Phil worked part-time as MCC’s North American Relief Sale coordinator, helping to launch 11 new sales, many in urban communities.

“I love what I do,” Phil says. “I think fundraising for a worthy cause—one in which you deeply believe—is one of the best jobs anyone can have. You get to meet wonderful people and to hear their stories. What better way to spend your time?”

Phil has been named “2011 Fundraiser of the Year” by the Shenandoah chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

This year’s sale raised approximately $307,638 in total receipts for Mennonite Central Committee. This does not include some pledges in matching funds from individuals that when added will push the amount raised slightly over last year’s sales total of $310,000.

EMU students sang for the crowd at the 2008 relief sale. Photo by Lindsey Roeschley

The funds included approximately $25,183 for the “Penny Power” project, initiated in 2001, in which area congregations, school, homes and businesses collect coins and currency in large water jugs for weeks or months and bring their containers to the sale for sorting and tabulating. Last year’s effort raised $28,984.

“Penny Power” funds will be divided equally between MCC and Virginia Mennonite Missions (VMM). MCC’s portion will be used to help MCC community workers promote peace projects. VMM will use its portion to support church planting and community efforts in an under served neighborhood of Harrisonburg and Graham, N.C.

An auction of handmade quilts, wall hangings, knotted comforters and afghans, artwork and wooden handcrafted items accounted for $143,801 of the total funds raised. Around 26 items went for $1,000 or more; 19 were quilts.

Risa Heatwole of Bridgewater College and EMU student Peyton Erb (r.) were among the volunteers placing items in 1,700 relief kits that Mennonite Central Committee will send to refugees in Iraq. Photo by Jim Bishop

The highest bid item was an oval-top pine table with Queen Anne legs made from recycled lumber made and donated by Jay Moyer of Dayton. He found the wood in a pile of lumber on the M.J. Heatwole homestead.

An off-white 102″x110″ Queen Anne quilt made by Anna Mary Burkholder of Augusta County, using using 950 yards of thread, brought a top bid of $6,000.

A solid walnut 79″ grandmother clock made by Stan Cline of Harrisonburg went for $4,100. A maple marble roller fashioned by Dan Bowman of Harrisonburg, who is blind, went for $2,500.

EMU students and local youth groups spent the evenings of Oct. 1-2 on campus to roll nearly 5,000 towels and bag nearly 1,350 gallons of laundry soap, part of the contents of relief kits or school kits that MCC will send to Iraq. Some students also joined other volunteers Saturday morning at the relief sale to assemble 1,700 relief kits and 2,000 school kits that filled the MCC semi-truck. The project also received $22,183 in cash contributions.

Laura Bomberger, a 2008 graduate of EMU, moves freshly-made donuts from the glazing process to be placed in boxes for sale. The 15,000 confectionery delights were sold out by late morning. Photo by Jim Bishop

Again this year the venue included such popular food items as 12,000 homemade glazed donuts (that were sold out by late morning), 180 gallons of Brunswick stew made on the premises by members of Springdale and Mt. View Mennonite churches in Augusta County, 3,000 barbecued chicken halves, homemade potato chips and apple butter and cider.

Read more about what goes into making thousands of homemade donuts each year…

The sale opened with a Friday afternoon two-hour live radio broadcast called “Down Home Shenandoah” on radio station WSIG, 96.9 FM. Using music and storytelling, the program sought to interpret the history and culture of the various Mennonite groups in the central Valley area and give a behind-the-scenes look at relief sale preparations. The broadcast ended with the audience joining in singing “606” (now #118 in the Brethren-Mennonite hymnal), “Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow.”

Philip N. Helmuth, relief sale chair and executive director of development at EMU, was pleased with the auction results.

“We recognize there are many needs around the world, and it seems that the economy didn’t affect peoples’ response,” Helmuth said. “They remained generous despite these tough economic times.”

The Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale is held annually on the first weekend in October. It began on the Paul Wenger farm near Waynesboro and expanded to Augusta Expoland, Fishersville, in 1974. The sale moved to the Rockingham County Fairgrounds in 1999.

By Rachel Bowman, Daily News-Record

˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř junior Marissa Benner cuts out doughnuts at the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale on Oct. 4. Photo by Tyler Coblentz

It’s not yet 6 a.m., but Lois Wenger greets everyone with a smile. “What do you think?” she asks, sweeping dough-covered hands to take in the cozy confines of the Chicken Shack kitchen.

This is a changing of the guard, as 34 – no, 42 – forget it, I’ve lost count – people bustle around flour-dusted tables and steamy fryer vats. An array of folks – everyone from cap-clad conservative Mennonite women, to men who look as if they just came from the farm, to jeans-and-hoodie-wearing EMU students – are getting quick tips on making doughnuts from the 3 to 6 a.m. shift workers.

On first sleep-tinged glance, the kitchen seems a maze of activity, an overwhelming operation of flour, dough and glaze with no clear beginning or end.

Donning flimsy plastic aprons, the 6 to 9 a.m. shift workers chat about the early hour as they wait for Lois Wenger to assign tasks. No matter where they are placed, however, they all have a common purpose: to make more than 12,000 doughnuts to feed the thousands of visitors who come to the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale.

Mixing, kneading, rolling and cutting, frying, glazing and boxing; precision organizational skills and many willing hands are needed to produce doughnuts for the relief sale. But, for organizers and volunteers alike, the hours seem to sail by as they make new friends and renew acquaintances – while keeping in mind that the hours of sleep they give up today may help people in need. Read more about the 2008 relief sale, held at the county fairgrounds on Oct. 4…

What Was She Thinking?

Lois Wenger is a receptionist in the development office at EMU and a maker of “thousands upon thousands” of homemade doughnuts for church and youth group events.

Lois and her husband, Robert Wenger, had been up since before 2 a.m. While most folks were still in bed, the couple – Lois, a receptionist in the development office at EMU, and Robert, pastor at Hebron Mennonite Church – were lugging boxes of butter, bags of flour, wooden rolling pins, five-gallon buckets and other items to the Rockingham County Fairgrounds. By 3 a.m., the first shift of 30 volunteers shuffle in, and Lois starts them mixing the batter; by 4 a.m., Robert and several men began frying doughnuts in six deep-fat fryers, in preparation for the customers who start lining up at the sale window before 6 a.m.

The annual Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale, held this past weekend at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds, raises money for disaster relief projects undertaken by the Mennonite Central Committee. Although the sale’s quilt auction draws crowds, many of those visitors also make time to stop at the doughnut booth. There, they may buy a single doughnut for 50 cents or a dozen of the fresh, hot-from-the-fryer confections for $6. Always homemade on the day of the sale, the doughnuts have been a staple of the relief sale for most of its history.

For the 17 years the relief sale was held at Augusta Expoland, several families headed the doughnut operation, which featured volunteers frying doughnuts outdoors in large kettles full of hot oil. By 1999, when the sale moved to its current location, organizers asked the Wengers to take on the task. The couple has been in charge of it since then. “We were told they’ve always been popular,” said Lois Wenger. “That, no question, we’ll always have doughnuts.”

The Wengers seemed the perfect choice. By Lois’ own estimate, she’s made “thousands upon thousands” of doughnuts for church and youth group events. Lois said she’s always used the same recipe, given to her by a friend who in turn got it from a bakery in Georgia, and tweaked it to her taste. By the time she and her husband were asked to make them for the relief sale, Lois said she figured she’d made more than 2,000 doughnuts during the 12 years her husband served at his previous church. When she was told that 16,000 doughnuts had been sold the final year at Expo, she didn’t flinch, confident she and her husband could handle it.

That is, until Lois got what she calls her “awakening.” Months before the relief sale, Lois attended a women’s conference in Philadelphia, at which 17,000 women were also present. As she looked at the women filling the hall, the enormity of the job she agreed to do sank in. “That’s one doughnut for every woman there,” she said. “And I thought to myself, ‘What was I thinking?'”

‘Dough Moves, People Don’t’

With reality settled in, Lois Wenger began planning how to efficiently and sanely carry out the doughnut operation. Knowing they’d be working out of the Chicken Shack, Lois said she visited the building, taking detailed measurements and noting the equipment already there to determine how many people would fit in the kitchen and what implements they’d need to bring. She also broke her tried-and-true recipe into discrete components: how much of each ingredient she needs per batch; the steps taken from mixing to rising to rolling and cutting to frying and glazing, and the utensils needed for each step of the process. She recorded these observations in a black spiral-bound one-subject notebook.

Lois Wenger still carries that notebook; it’s faded and worn now, and filled with pages in her neat handwriting detailing each year’s doughnut production. She knows how much flour, frying oil, sugar and yeast she’ll need to make the doughnuts (825 pounds of flour, 19 five-gallon cubes of frying oil, 15 pounds of sugar and 27 pounds of yeast this year, in case you’re wondering). She knows that one “mix” of her recipe makes a little more than 400 doughnuts, so to meet this year’s goal of 12,000 doughnuts she’ll need enough ingredients for 34 mixes. She premeasures all ingredients so the mixers have exactly what they need on hand.

She and her husband supervise three shifts of approximately 30 to 35 people each. Those people are assigned to work at stations that cover specific tasks of doughnut production. She keeps track of the changes made to the Chicken Shack from year to year, such as the addition of a walk-in cooler, new fryers and an expansion in the production area, and modifies the steps to accommodate those changes. There’s little movement among stations, because “runners” are also assigned to move the doughnuts in their various raw-to-cooked-to-glazed stages.

This attention to each step of production explains how nearly three dozen people are able to work in a small kitchen without bumping into each other and spilling raw doughnuts onto the floor. Lois even has a mantra that captures the efficiency of process she strives for: “The Dough Moves and The People Don’t.” She is also emphatic in her reliance on the notebook to get her through each year. “If I had to think about this every year, it would just be overwhelming,” she said.

A Way To Serve

Fortunately for the Wengers, volunteers are never in short supply. Lois Wenger said Sunday school classes and youth groups from several local Mennonite churches look forward to helping. “Most people volunteer year after year,” she said, with many staking out specific shifts or tasks.

Several of the volunteers say they are amazed at the efficiency of the assembly line method of making the homemade doughnuts.

Debbie Huffman of Rockingham County said she enjoys “watch[ing] the rhythm of it all.” Huffman, who, along with her husband, Wayne, and members of their Sunday School class at Weaver’s Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, ha
s volunteered to work every year since the sale moved to the fairgrounds, said the well-organized set-up makes it easier for volunteers to help out. Huffman’s class always chooses the 6 to 9 a.m. shift, while other groups in the church, including the youth group, meet earlier in the week to assemble boxes for the finished doughnuts.

Martha Martin and several women from Mount Pleasant Mennonite Church near Dayton also return to their 6 to 9 a.m. shift every year to mix batter. Martin, who lives in Dayton, said the women were asked to help out for the 1999 sale, and they’ve gladly come back each year. “Everyone working together, that’s what I like,” she explained.

For Ruth Ellen Dandurand, a junior at EMU, her volunteer efforts enable her to meet people she may not otherwise encounter. A native of Vermont, Dandurand was one of many EMU students in the kitchen for this shift; she and seven girls from her hall came out, as well as members of the EMU volleyball team. As she picked up raw doughnuts from the floured table and placed them on cloth-covered trays, she and her friends chatted easily with other volunteers, trading tales of school days, church functions and summer camp. Sometimes, surprisingly, they’d find they shared common experiences with the older, sometimes conservative, volunteers standing beside them at the rolling and cutting table – classes or professors, July weeks spent at Highland Retreat, church dinner dishes or youth group games. “It’s rewarding knowing that all these people in the process can work together,” she noted.

And, that the work and socializing they do now will help the needy and suffering around the world. “It’s a way to help people overseas,” Martin said. Dandurand, who’s not a member of the Mennonite faith, agreed with Martin. “It’s a way to help with the relief sale itself,” she added.

By 8:45 a.m., the mixers on the 6 to 9 a.m. had mixed 18 batches of batter, and most of the doughnuts to be sold were boxed and ready for hungry customers. Volunteers for the 9 a.m. to noon shift began drifting in, receiving instructions from the tired, flour- and glaze-covered folks that preceded them. Lois and Robert Wenger remained with this shift, which made a few more dozen doughnuts and began clean-up duty. By the time the flour’s swept off the floor, the fryers are washed out and the equipment packed on the truck, the Wengers will have logged more than 12 hours making doughnuts.

As the 6 to 9 a.m. shift volunteers washed up, they readily accepted Lois Wenger’s offers of free doughnuts. Many were heading out to enjoy the rest of the relief sale, planning to buy food or crafts or bid on auction items to further support the relief sale’s mission. A bite of fresh, warm doughnut – fluffy inside, sweetly glazed outside, a hint of nutmeg and cinnamon dancing on the tongue – and the lost sleep and sore muscles from kneading basketball-sized chunks of dough melted away.

Auctioneer H.L. Wenger of Harrisonburg calls for bids on Brownie and Gladys Driver’s Log Cabin Cross quilted wall hanging, a duplicate of one the sisters made earlier that was given to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Photo by Jim Bishop

A 21″ by 31″ quilted wall hanging, “Log Cabin Cross,” the sisters made this summer to donate to the relief sale instead was purchased by EMU as a gift to Rev. Desmond Tutu. The Anglican Archbishop was in Harrisonburg on Sept. 21 – the International Day of Peace – to receive an award from the Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence at James Madison University in recognition of his peacemaking work in his native South Africa.

EMU President Loren Swartzendruber and other EMU officials participated in a tree-planting ceremony at the Gandhi Center earlier that day and gave the Nobel Laureate the Drivers’ handmade wall hanging.

The $500 EMU paid for the piece was donated to , the worldwide relief and service agency based in Akron, Pa.

Back to Work

In a two-week period immediately following, the Driver sisters fashioned a second identical Log Cabin Cross wall hanging that went for $525 during Saturday’s auction.

The Driver sisters, residents of Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community, have created paintings, quilts, comforters and wall hangings to donate to the sale every year since the event began in 1967. “It’s something we can do,” Gladys Driver said. “We’d feel like something was missing if we didn’t participate in this way.”

This year’s sale raised $310,000 in gross receipts for Mennonite Central Committee, nearly identical to last year’s sale.

‘Penny Power’ Project

These funds include approximately $21,835 for the “Penny Power” project, initiated in 2001, in which area congregations and other groups collect coins and currency in large water jugs for weeks or months and bring their containers to the sale for sorting and tabulating.

The “Penny Power” funds will be divided equally between MCC and . MCC’s portion will be used to minister to AIDS orphans and vulnerable children in 11 countries. VMBM will use its portion to support the ministry of Micah, Adam and Isaiah Riddle, children of missionaries Chris and Melody Riddle in Italy.

An auction of handmade quilts, wall hangings, knotted comforters and afghans, artwork and wooden handcrafted items accounted for $120,000 of the total funds raised.

$1,000 or More

Around 19 items went for $1,000 or more.

A wall hanging designed and pieced by Carmen Wyse of Community Mennonite Church and quilted by Grace Mumaw of Lindale Mennonite Church that was made from feed sacks of the 1930s and 1940s went for $6,100.

A 13th edition of the “Harmonia Sacra” songbook created by Joseph Funk and published in 1869 went for $1,200.

There’s no glazed expression for first-year EMU student Ingrid Johnson, one of many volunteers in the homemade donut operation. The process started at midnight, and persons worked three-hour shifts in making 15,000 of the confectionery delights. Photo by Jim Bishop

Again this year the venue included such popular food items as 15,000 homemade glazed donuts, 150 gallons of Brunswick stew made on the premises by members of Springdale and Mt. View Mennonite churches in Augusta County, 3,000 barbecued chicken halves, homemade potato chips and apple butter and cider.

Live Radio Broadcast

The sale opened with a Friday afternoon two-hour live radio broadcast called “Down Home Shenandoah” on radio station WSIG, 96.9 FM. Using music and storytelling, the program sought to interpret the history and culture of the various Mennonite groups in the central Valley area. The broadcast ended with the audience joining in singing “606” (now #118 in the Brethren-Mennonite hymnal), “Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow.”

“This was an experiment of sorts, an attempt to bring back ‘old-time radio’ that you seldom hear anymore while trying to relate some of the area Mennonites’ church’s distinctives and traditions,” said Hal Dubois, co-host of the show.

“The sale auction seemed a bit different this year in that there weren’t a lot of ‘big ticket’ items, said Marvin Nisly, relief sale chair. “No quilt went for more than $4,000, yet at the same time the auction generated almost the same amount as last year.

Nisly thought the unseasonably warm weather helped draw “a larger than usual crowd,” adding: “I’m always amazed at the way everything comes together [at the sale] and the amount of good will that is generated as people support this relief effort.”

The Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale is held annually on the first Saturday in October. It began on the Wenger farm near Waynesboro and expanded to Augusta Expoland in 1974. The sale moved to the Rockingham County Fairgrounds in 1999.