Aldersgate’s fish fry hitting 30-year mark
Thirty years ago a couple of charter members of the South Little Rock Rotary Club (now Little Rock Midtown Rotary) suited up to deep fry some catfish for 150 supporters of Camp Aldersgate. Their names are John Bennett and Ed Staley.
“It really goes back to a guy named John Blundell, and he was a member of our South Little Rock Rotary,” Staley says. “He said, ‘Guys, I need some help. I’ve got this camp that I’m the executive director of, and we don’t have any money. We need to raise money. …’ We said, ‘Well, we’ll just go cook fish.’”
Aldersgate is the camp off Kanis Road swarmed by kids with special needs. It was actually begun in the summer of 1947 by a group of Methodist women who thought an old turkey farm would make a novel setting for whites and blacks to better understand each other. I suppose it’s still a place that promotes racial togetherness, but it’s probably better known as a camp for kids who might not go to camp otherwise.
Bennett and Staley worked that first fish fry and the next year schemed to build a fryer — another Rotarian had a welding shop — and do it all themselves.
These last few years, about 1,500 have made it out to their Camp Aldersgate fall fish fry. It takes anywhere from 750 to 900 pounds of fish to feed them. Staley was able to replicate the first fryer’s — “Preacher” they called him — Cajun cornmeal coating, and over the years it has become the signature.
“It’s got quite a bit of cayenne pepper in it, and you know, commercially, no one will do that.”
This year’s midday feast takes place Oct. 6. It starts at noon and ends at 3 p.m. The camp’s address is 2000 Aldersgate Road. Tickets are just $15 at the door. For more information, call (501) 225-1444 or visit Campaldersgate.net.
Neither Bennett nor Staley have any intentions of retiring after 30 years.
“The key thing is the fellowship around the camp,” Staley says, “and how many people have come to the fish fry who didn’t know where Camp Aldersgate was and have come and learned what it’s all about.”
“At the end of the day,” Bennett says, “you look out there and see these kids in wheelchairs who,” when they’re at Camp Aldersgate, “are just like anyone else there. They’re not different [from] anyone at this camp. It’s such a great benefit I think.”
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the Little Rock Midtown Rotary does about two dozen fish fries a year, and their heaviest lifter is a fellow named Rick Hatten.
GOOD FOOD AND A GOOD LAUGH
I asked Staley if he’d ever thought about slipping a lobster tail or Twinkie in with the filets and serving it up to some unsuspecting gobbler. Sort of a “golden ticket” or King cake surprise. “No, I haven’t,” he said. Then, “You got a lot to learn, bro.”
And finally, “You’re definitely not from the South.”
Folks, that’s why I’m stuck behind the keyboard while Staley’s out front of the fryer. He won’t let you down.
STILL HUNGRY?
Last week on the cover of the section we had Julie Cawthron sporting an orange mustache. Not many women have the moxie to go out front with a hairy upper lip. If it raises awareness of Multiple Sclerosis, she said, she’ll take the hit as a cover girl.
Orange is the branded color of MS, but it’s also the color of the Arkansas Foodbank’s Hunger Action Month. Throughout September, they’ve had wear-orange days and events at which orange was the new black.
Polly Deems, who’s spearheading the calendar of events for the Foodbank, says orange is a nice harvest color, but it’s also the color of hunger. When I pointed out that MS has also claimed orange, she didn’t act too proprietary. There’s only so many bright colors to go around.
On Sept. 19, the Foodbank is hosting a “Cans Film Festival” at three times and locations around town: three documentaries addressing food insecurity will play, and each is free with the donation of canned goods. Similarly, on Sept. 24, the Foodbank will be at Knight’s Super Foods (906 S. Pine St. in Cabot) from 5 until 9:30 a.m. with KTHV’s Tom Brannon for Tuna Tuesday (a canned meats drive). Then, on Sept. 26, any of 31 central Arkansas Arvest Bank locations will begin collecting canned foods and will continue through October — they’re calling it the One Million Meals drive.
I pointed out to Polly that people must feel about canned food drives the way they do about presidential elections — my single contribution doesn’t make a difference.
“You alone don’t feel like you make an impact, but when you think about the numbers of Arkansans that rally around it — it makes a big impact.”
Incidentally, one of my favorite anti-hunger outfits, Potluck, which takes the ‘f’ out of refuse by collecting food otherwise headed for the bins in back of restaurants or grocers, and high-tails it to soup kitchens and shelters, is hosting Links + Drinks III, its fall fundraising cookout at Potluck’s North Little Rock digs at 621 W. Broadway, at 6 p.m. Thursday. Tickets are $50 and include “cool jazz with hot dogs and swell sides from some of Little Rock’s best-loved restaurants,” says Carol Herzog, Potluck’s pit crew chief.
PARTING THOUGHT
On Thursday Amy Lasseigne’s fifth annual Artists for Ovaries takes place at the Junior League of Little Rock building (Woman’s City Club) downtown.
I asked Lasseigne about the name.
“When I hear ‘Artists for Ovaries’ I giggle a little inside,” I told her.
Then I offered her a few reasons why, including that I may not be a grown up. She added, “It’s socially uncomfortable?”
It is, and yet, in the marketing sense, the name’s very sticky. Artists for Ovaries — it’s a touch alliterative, a touch discordant, and artists and ovaries are productive in a way that get near unanimous nods.
Artists who’ve signed on include Virmarie DePoyster (one of my favorite artist names of all time), Emily Wood, Gabriel Solis, Tracee Gentry-Matthews, Sondra Seaton and Teresa Smith. Tickets are $45 at the door and include hors d’oeuvres and drinks. Doors open at 6:30 and the first round of bidding ends at 7:45 p.m.
What’s the fight color of ovarian cancer? Teal.