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ROTARY CHICKEN BARBECUE AND FALL FESTIVAL 2012
Page 14
A tradition of service
Dedication to community service remains strong after 57 years
Every year, when the Fall Festival
and the Plymouth Rotary Club
ChickenBarbeque takes place, there is
a sense of nostalgia and history sur-
rounding the event.
It has been 57 years since the event
began and this will be the 56th annual
barbeque which was cancelled only
once in the last half century.
The tradition of the Rotary Club
and the effort to improve and give back
to the community hasn't changedmuch
in the past 57 years. The purpose, com-
munity giving, remains the same
although the event and the contribu-
tions have grown considerably in
scope.
The event began in 1956 when
Plymouth Rotary Club member Don
Lightfoot had an idea to help the club
fund the purchase of some playground
equipment in what is now called
JayceePark.
Lightfoot thought a chicken bar-
beque in the park at the end of Wing
Street prepared by the club members
and theirwiveswould build some com-
munity pride while helping generate
some funds for the needed equipment.
That was the beginning of the treas-
ured tradition which will take place
this year beginning at 11 a.m. Sept. 9.
Lightfoot is credited with the idea
in a book about the history of
Plymouthwritten by SamHudson pub-
lished in 1976.
Now, the weekend after Labor Day
in downtown Plymouth finds the
streets packed with service club volun-
teers, performers and thousands of vis-
itors amidst tantalizing aromas of spe-
cialty foods.
Hudson, a Plymouth historian,
chronicled the beginning of the Fall
Festival with the barbeque thought up
by Lightfoot when about 500 people
attended.
It was successful enough to return
the following year and the year after as
a community barbeque and, after a
one-year hiatus, the event returned as
the first PlymouthFall Festival in 1960.
It had beenmoved from the original
June date to the fall by that time, and
the original organizers of the event
wanted to put on more than just a bar-
beque.
They traveled to Manchester, where
volunteers had organized a successful
barbeque for several years, according
to Hudson. They came away with new
ideas to improve the event, everything
from a better, more efficient way to
cook the chicken to ways to approach
other community groups to get them
involved.
The event was moved from the orig-
inal park site in 1957 to the Hamilton