I am happy to report that Greenfield Oktoberfest 2022 was a huge success! This was the third Oktoberfest organized by the Friends of the Greenfield Community Meetinghouse, and it was our biggest year ever.
It’s a little bit challenging to find volunteers for Oktoberfest because, of course, everyone wants to be at the party, not working. But we always have more than enough help when the day comes, and working at Oktoberfest is just as much fun as being a guest. The best thing about Oktoberfest was the many, many people who made a special effort to thank us for putting on the event. This meant the world to our crew.
Oktoberfest has two equally important missions — to raise money for repairs and to bring our community together at the Meetinghouse. This year’s event clearly demonstrated the current limitations, as well as the enormous potential, of this 227-year-old building.
Most people who grew up in Greenfield have fond memories of the old Meetinghouse basement. The kitchen and community room were added in the 1950s, and for generations, were a hub of church and community dinners. The Woman’s Club even put in a dumbwaiter to get food from the basement kitchen up to the first-floor meeting room faster.
In recent years, however, the basement has suffered serious water damage, as the foundation desperately needs waterproofing. The basement ceiling and floors have been damaged, and despite the diligent efforts of the town maintenance staff, it smells like something died down there.
The old restrooms, just one stall each, are all the way at the back of the basement and accessible only by stairs. One restroom stopped working in the middle of Oktoberfest due to weak water flow, so we had to direct the ladies to the upstairs restroom, which is smack in the middle of the upstairs kitchen!
With the basement kitchen currently not functional due to water damage, our amazing chefs, Warren Aldrich, Sharon Andrews and last-minute helper Tyler Baldwin, had a minuscule space in which to make enough macaroni and cheese for 300 people.
There is barely room to turn around in the upstairs kitchen even when it’s empty – add three chefs, volunteers, piles of cardboard boxes, trash barrels, massive vats of pasta and a line of people waiting to use the upstairs restroom, you start to get the picture of the chaos in the little kitchen that night! (The macaroni and cheese, by the way, was prepared last-minute because if anyone plugs in more than one crockpot, the whole building shorts out.)
On top of all that, the passageway through the upstairs kitchen is the only accessible entrance to the Meetinghouse, so our guests needing the wheelchair ramp had to roll through a gauntlet of pots, pans, boxes, trash barrels, etc. to get inside. Despite these logistical challenges, we had the most accommodating and cheerful crowd anyone could ever ask for. One guest told me, “People would never be this nice in my town!”
Oktoberfest also serves to illustrate the incredible potential of the Meetinghouse as an event venue. Despite major logistical problems, we managed to pull off a fantastic event for 300 very understanding people. Just imagine a Greenfield Meetinghouse with all 3 1/2 floors updated, renovated, wired for tech and sound, designed with flexible fixtures, energy-efficient and fully accessible to all.
With any luck, this may be the last Oktoberfest in the old Meetinghouse, thanks to the support of everyone in Greenfield.
For ideas for this column, please email Jesseca Timmons at jesstimm17@gmail.com.