Seven women circle a table, slicing ruby-red strawberries into stainless steel bowls in the kitchen of Linden-Linthicum United Methodist Church. They gossip, they tease, they laugh, and soon their bowls brim with the local bounty to be celebrated today at the Clarksville Community Strawberry Festival.
And already, the women are thinking about ways to make next year's festival even better. "I have an idea," says Dottie Raver.
"Strawberry daiquiris?" someone guesses. No, Mrs. Raver says. Box lunches. Next year, a carryout box lunch, with fried chicken and coleslaw or potato salad, would increase sales, she says.
That seems to be the way with strawberry festivals. As the season's first home-grown fruit, the berry signifies the lush promise of summer and is, in itself, worthy of communal recognition. But the berry is also a sweet catalyst in a vital social circuit, from the field, to the community, to the causes the community supports. So the bigger the strawberry festival, the bigger the draw -- and the bigger the take. For the Linden-Linthicum congregation, that means more money to support its building campaign.
Even before Maryland's short and fragile strawberry season arrives, dozens of churches throughout Maryland hold traditional strawberry festivals, replete with strawberry shortcake, strawberry sundaes, strawberry pies and strawberries, pure and simple. For the many congregations who hold them, the festivals are a time of fellowship and a way to raise money to support missions abroad, local causes and their churches as well. Proceeds can range from a couple hundred dollars to a few thousand, depending on the festival's scale.
Because strawberries are grown in every state, the strawberry festivals that fete them are a universal tradition that promote the fruit and increase its economic impact. (Although Marion on the Eastern Shore was the strawberry capital of the world at the turn of the century, the economic impact of the strawberry harvest in the state today is minimal, says Tony Evans, coordinator of marketing communications for the state Department of Agriculture.)
"It's fantastic! It's delicious . . . and it's a way to support the local industry, but at the same time it's a celebration of spring," says Dr. Bill Courter, who as secretary of the North American Strawberry Growers Association, encourages the proliferation of such festivals.
