The parish members prepare and package homemade chicken and noodles over mashed potatoes with meatloaf, corn, cole slaw, salads and homemade pie. The Fall Festival started over 25 years ago, originally served in the basement of St. Mary’s church. The event switched to a drive through meal in 2020 when COVID was still of concern.

“I said it would never work,” said Rod Dagit, who has helped each year with the event.

Since then, they have created a route for cars to line up surrounding the city park. The meals are served from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., about two hours. But people line up early to be sure they don’t run out.

When the dinner was held in the basement, there was always homemade bread and butter pickles on the tables. When they switched to the drive through, they started selling them in jars separately from the meals as part of the drive through sales effort. This year they sold 100 jars of pickles and ran out before the end of the two hour event.

Homemade noodles are stirred up, rolled out and frozen as soon as the event ends, preparing for the following year, according to Wayne Greufe, a member of the finance committee for St. Mary’s church.

It takes over 30 gallons of corn, 300 pounds of potatoes and 35 buckets of noodles that are made throughout the year, according to Dagit.

“It takes about 35 dozen eggs just for the noodles,” said Rod.

Rod, his brother Randy and their mother, Colleen Dagit prepare the noodles, corn and pickles far in advance to get ready for the event.

“There’s so many people involved with serving,” said Greufe, “And we have a great team of young people who help deliver the meals.”

“We couldn’t do it without the community showing up,” said Rod.