DIDSBURY – A local organization has stepped up to help raise money for the local food bank by selling cookbooks.
Margery Steckler, past matron of the St. Hilda's chapter #27 of the Eastern Star, told the Gazette the group has been raising money selling the homemade books for a few months, with proceeds going to the Mountain View Food Bank. The final tally, $1,100, was donated to the food bank at a presentation at the Masonic Hall in Didsbury on Feb. 20.
"I was the worthy matron last year," said Steckler. "Every year the worthy matron of the chapter chooses something that she thinks would be of benefit to either some organization in the community or to our hall or whatever. I was looking around and thought given the economic times, I know the food bank needs extra support. They always need support."
Steckler said with the group not really needing anything done to the hall or for the chapter at that time, donating to the food bank "seemed like a good idea."
"That's how I came up with the idea of doing it," she said. "Now how were we going to raise this money. I knew that cookbooks were something that was really good. Because we had just celebrated our 100th anniversary, I went out to collect recipes from former members. We asked our members to give us recipes that were special to them."
Steckler said they ended up putting together an 80-page cookbook filled with recipes from members and former members.
"We have recipes from members going back, some of our members are second, third, fourth generation of the Star going back to their grandmothers and great- grandmothers, aunts, and so on," she said. "Some of the people who submitted recipes were members of our chapter and now live all over the world.
"A lot are recipes from people that were here for years and years and are now gone, and their family members have submitted the recipes."
Steckler said putting the book together was a trip down memory lane for her and other members.
"The recipes are tried and true," she said. "A lot of them were family favourites. They came with little notations, this was served at so-and-so's wedding. All of that went into the book."
