Guild Dinner

I attended my guild's "end of season" dinner on Wednesday night.  This year, the executive decided to do their own catering.  It was an ambitious task, feeding almost 120 ladies, but they did an awesome job.  They prepared cold ham and roast beef, along with a huge variety of salads, homemade pickles and lovely rolls.  There were fruit trays and plates of squares on every table, as well as a couple of herbs in pots for decoration.  As usual, we are each asked to bring our own table setting - placemat, napkin, dishes and silverware.  The tables looked very festive with multicolour mats and dishes.  
As a guest speaker, we had a couple from Brockville ON talk to us about their support of an orphanage in Chernobyl area of Russia.  They head up a foundation that has been helping there for the past 10 years.  They now take care of 4 orphanages in the area, as well as items for the community.  One of their projects is to provide a quilt for each orphan to keep (most of the donated items are owned by the state).  Our Community quilts project sent them home with 6 more quilts to take on their next trip.  
It is amazing to see the work they have done there - rebuilding the bathrooms, providing books, a tractor so that they could farm more of the land to feed the children.  Last year they raised enough money to help with a renovation of the town hospital!  Their charity only uses 1% of donations to cover their overhead - a remarkable feat!  I have just added another quilt to my summer list - to send to Chernobyl!