"The holy rollers rolled out the pie bottoms to freeze, the spice girls mixed the spices, and the bag ladies put the dry pastry into bags," said Darlene Laferriere, Chair of the 'Apple Pie Committee' at Trinity United Church.
It is all in preparation for the popular Trinity United Church “Apple Pie Project.”
On Saturday, a group of volunteers from the from North Bay church will head to Collingwood to pick 75 bushels of apples, which will get washed and cleaned the following day. On Monday, the dedicated group of volunteers will peel and assemble the pies for sale.
“We assemble the pies, put them in bags with instructions on them and they’re out the door,” explained Laferriere.
The project began 18 years ago as a way to raise money for the church.
In the beginning, Shirley Tayler and Betty George approached the church’s accountant, Art Siemans about taking on the project, which he readily agreed to, even going so far as to help pick the apples.
“Our first trip, Art took his old truck and coming home, his truck was so loaded down, I was afraid he was going to bottom out. But he was so supportive of the project, that it just grew from that,” said Tayler.
“This church does a lot of fundraising, and it goes to outreach many, many groups like the baby program, youth programs, the food shelf, and the soup kitchen, a lot of different things. But you know what? We have to keep the doors open too. We have put to date, $175,000 into this church to keep it running. And that is absolutely exciting.”
Pie sales have gone from a respectable 200 pies in the early years to 1,500, with the help of over 70 volunteers, some with no direct affiliation to the church, other then they want to help.
Rae Brownlee was a member of the original group that got the project rolling.
“I never thought this would grow to be such a major project. We started by making a few hundred pies and we thought that was a big deal,” she chuckled.
“We can’t believe the amount of people who come out every year. Some are just able to sit and peel a few apples, but that’s still wonderful. Many are over 90 years old now, and they’re still coming out to do what they can do.”
Jean Rideout always looks forward to this fall tradition.
“Going down to pick the apples ourselves is a fun day. We take a lunch and we always stop for ice cream in Stayner after we pick the apples. We really enjoy it.”
When the project first got underway, Noreen Brewer would volunteer on her days off. These days she is joined by her husband.
“He gets all the drivers. We need enough vehicles to accommodate all the bushels of apples we transport. How many drivers we need depends on how many bushels each vehicle can hold. Sometimes we have trailers that will fit a lot, and then sometimes we have to get more vehicles because some might only hold five bushels. We’ve been lucky. We’ve only had one year that it poured rain on us.”
Janice Brownlee has been making pies with the group since her retirement 12 years ago.
“I enjoy it, It’s fun. And I never roll pastry except here. This is my one time every year,” laughed Brownlee.
Without giving away all the family secrets, Laferriere has some fun facts for making 1,500 apple pies.
“We go through 37, 10-pound bags of flour, 24 dozen eggs, and 34 pounds of lard. That’s just a bit of what we got through. We start watching the sales early in the year and pick things up. And we save money by picking the apples ourselves from an orchard in Collingwood.”
The group was concerned that the hot dry summer would impact the availability of apples.
“One year there was a drought and we couldn’t get them from where we normally went and had to find another orchard. This year I was worried about the apples because of the dryness, but we’re hearing they’re beautiful,” said Tayler.
“We notice every year when we go for the apples, that there’s so much housing going up in that area, that a lot of people are plowing under their orchards,” said Laferriere.
“And it’s just so sad because we don’t know how much longer we can continue the project if we can’t find good Ontario apples.”
Pie orders are still being accepted for a limited time, by calling the Trinity United Church office at 705-474-3310.
The $10 pies are always a sellout.
