Senior Connection hosts spaghetti lunch as fundraiser

Published 3:06 pm Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Members of Senior Connection serve spaghetti and meat sauce to the community during lunch on Wednesday. (Photo by Anthony Richards/Advertiser)

Members of Senior Connection serve spaghetti and meat sauce to the community during lunch on Wednesday. (Photo by Anthony Richards/Advertiser)

It was a busy day on Wednesday at Senior Connection, with its spaghetti lunch and new sign being added to the building.

The spaghetti lunch was open to the community, as residents from around Clanton stopped by to enjoy some homemade food.

With the purchase of a ticket, guests received spaghetti with meat sauce, a bowl of salad, dessert and the choice of tea or water.

Sammy Wyatt cooked the main dish of spaghetti and sauce and the original idea for the lunch was Mollie Smelley, who helped start it up three years ago.

“I’ve done it the same way for many year, and it seems to work pretty good,” Wyatt said.

Spaghetti is a food that is universally accepted and something that the majority of people would be able to enjoy.

Entertainment was provided to those in attendance by the Chilton County “Perfect Peaches,” a line dance group that will attempt to win the Masters Games of Alabama competition for the second straight year on Oct. 12.

The lunch serves as a fundraiser for Senior Connection with the proceeds going toward the general operation fund that helps with the day-to-day expenses of being a non-profit organization.

“We’re proud that this has become a facility that the rest of the community can use,” Smelley said.

The Senior Connection building has been remodeled within the past year and that is the result of donations and money brought in through fundraisers such as the spaghetti lunch.

The most recent of these donations was the letters for the sign on the front of the building that were donated on Wednesday by Jimmy and Dian Easterling with Keith Properties.

Although the lunch was scheduled, the letters for the sign were a surprise even to Senior Connection Coordinator Vanessa McKinney.

“We could not have the success if it was not for the community support,” Smelley said. “The food has something to do with it, but it’s really the generosity of people.”