Extreme Dinner Make-Over

I won a contest.

A couple weeks before I left for Southwest Asia, I was walking out of Chick-Fil-A in Cranberry, and my wife pointed to an ad Tee-Pee by the door. It was announcing a contest to have a dinner hosted in your neighborhood for you and 99 of your friends. My wife suggested off-hand that I should enter since I like to write. You had to write a quick essay; 100 words or less on why you would want to have a neighborhood dinner party. For me, this was too easy.

I quickly jotted down that I've been deployed several times and was going again this summer, and would really enjoy hosting a party for all my neighbors and friends thanking them for all their support for both me and my family over the the years.

Sure enough, about two weeks later I received a phone call from a girl named Rose who worked in the marketing department of the local Chick-Fil-A telling me I was selected as a winner! All I had to do was name the place and the date, some week night during the summer from 6:30 to 8:30. Chick-Fil-A would handle everything else.


After some discussions with Laura, we decided to hold it after I got back, as a kind of celebration. We had to give them a date, so I looked at when I was SUPPOSED to be back and added ten days.. just to be sure... (good thing, eh?)

So on Monday, the 25th, we held the party at the local park in one of the pavillions. Chick-Fil-A showed up at 5:30 and set up a tent next to the pavillion, laid out the food, and set up music and speakers. They even had a slate of games for people to play, but I think we kind of disappointed them when we came up with 80 names and only six of them were under the age of 10. I think they were used to much younger crowds.

Laura actually sent out invitations to something like 140 people. We garnered about 80 positive replies, and about 75 people showed, so it was a nice crowd. One of my neighbors, Jim Shantz, had won the services of a classical guitarist for two hours and wondered if he might bring him to the party since he didn't know when else he'd use him. I said bring him on over, what the heck! So we were serenaded by classical guitar as we ate our sandwiches and fries!

I invited my son's Boy Scout troop, since they typically meet on Monday nights, and the Chaplain's Aid led us in an opening prayer before we lined up for the food and drink. There was plenty to eat: I think pretty much everyone had seconds, and some of the boys even went back for thirds! Dinner even included some killer brownies.. so it was quite a feast.

As it turned out we all had so much fun sitting and talking that we never did get around to the fun and games.. and actually that was okay. I felt bad about the Chick-Fil-A folks getting all geared up for it, but they had assessed the mood and activities of the crowd and decided to just let us sit, eat and talk to our hearts content. It was just a gorgeous evening and so much fun seeing all our friends and family enjoying themselves.

The beauty of it was, when it was all over, our caterers packed up, cleaned up and departed, leaving nothing for us to do except say our goodbyes. It was a great evening, and my hat is off to Ron Trout and the Cranberry Township Chick-Fil-A for making it all happen so smoothly.