Labor of love
After cooking all night, the Knights of Columbus will start their annual Labor Day barbecue sale at 10 a.m. today.
The 50th annual Knights of Columbus Labor Day Barbecue kicks off at 10 a.m. today and runs until 2 p.m. — or until all the food is sold.
At least 2,000 people are expected to dine in or grab meals to go from the holiday tradition at the Rome Civic Center on Jackson Hill.
Crews were at the hall’s barbecue house all day Sunday cooking hams, beef butts, Brunswick stew and ribs. Grand Knight Ron Bennetti said more volunteers with the organization based at St. Mary’s Catholic Church would start their work today.
“I’ll be at the church with a group cooking baked beans from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m.,” Bennetti said. “All the hams will be chopped up. A group will be making barbecue sauce, a group will be making up carry-out plates and, of course, later there will be people cleaning up.”
Tickets, available at the door, start at $5 for a sandwich combo and $7 for a half-chicken or quart of baked beans. Barbecue plates, at $9, offer a choice of beef, pork, ribs or a quarter-chicken and include Brunswick stew, baked beans, chips and bread.
A pound of beef or pork to go, or a quart of Brunswick stew, also runs $9 and a half-rack of spare ribs is $18.
Jamie Moore was stirring three vats of Brunswick stew in the barbecue house Sunday. At 3 p.m. he said they’d been simmering for six hours.
“We’re getting ready to jar it up and start on the next batch,” he said.
His assistant, 12-yearold Maddie Fountain, helped chop the meat and onions and open the dozens of cans. Maddie came
up from Paulding County with her father, Dale Fountain, for the second year in a row. They planned to spend the night and wake at dawn to continue the cooking.
“It is hard work,” Maddie admitted. “But it turns out to be fun hard work.”
The money raised by the Knights of Columbus goes to nonprofits serving people in need in Rome and Floyd County, barbecue chair Jim Powell said. While no official tally exists, he said longtime volunteers estimate as much as $200,000 has been distributed since the event started in 1967.