texasmesquite

For the love of food, community

By Kim Lincoln
The Courier-Gazette Reporter

WASHINGTON (Aug 21): The love of food is being used as a way to help sustain many Washington nonprofit organizations.

Since 2007, five Washington Heirloom Recipe Cookbooks have been created, and the proceeds from their sales benefit different town organizations. The recipes come from townspeople and their families and also include recipes from local chefs, town selectmen and members of the various groups.
The fundraising effort has been so successful that Washington groups plan to keep producing more cookbooks, which will eventually be compiled into one large cookbook for the town's bicentennial in 2011. That cookbook will benefit four local scholarship funds.

Paulette Oboyski of Washington holds up town cookbooks that are sold to generate money for town nonprofits. The groups have a booth set up at the Union Fair this week. (Image courtesy of Paulette Oboyski)

Paulette Oboyski, secretary of the Washington Fire Department Auxiliary and vice president of Gibbs Library, came up with the fundraising idea as she served desserts at department dinners.
“It has been a great collaborative effort of the community,” she said.
Oboyski, along with Gibbs Library President Cheryl McKeary and Paula Green, an artist from the Downtown Art Gallery, put together the first cookbook. It was produced to benefit the fire department auxiliary and featured many of the dessert recipes served at the dinners. “This was so successful we didn’t have to do a few of our other efforts to raise money,” Oboyski said.

From there, the community went to work creating more cookbooks.
Each cookbook has a theme and is suited to each organization. For example, the Gibbs Library cookbook features all cookie recipes.
“The library is known for cookies," Oboyski said. "We have cookies for everything."
The fundraiser project was a major reason why the library was awarded the 2008 Dirigo Award for Non-Profit Excellence from the Maine Association of Non-Profits, Oboyski said.
The Ladies’ Guild of Washington has a soup, chowder and bread cookbook. The cover is pink because the group organizes the town’s strawberry festival each summer.
The Evening Star Grange cookbook features salads and casseroles. Many of the recipes are often served when the grange holds fundraisers for families in need or for people who have experienced disasters such as a house fire.
The Washington Wildfires, which is a Red Hat Society chapter, just debuted its appetizer and stew cookbook. The book, which is red, was sponsored by the Wildfires and 16 businesses. All proceeds benefit the Washington Food Bank.
Each book is dedicated to a townsperson and includes a letter from the organization’s president. The first recipe in each book is from one of the project's biggest supporters — Adelma Linscott Bowes. Bowes, who will be 101 years old next month, is the town’s Boston Post Cane holder and a cookbook fanatic, Oboyski said. The books also include history about the organizations.
A few more cookbooks are in the works for the coming years, including a holiday cookbook and one containing vegetable and fruit recipes.
The cookbooks are on sale in the craft barn at the Union Fair this week. About 40 townspeople have volunteered to staff the booth, which is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday. The cookbooks can be ordered by e-mailing Oboyski at poboyski@fairpoint.net. The cookbooks cost $5 each.