4-Hers and volunteers are busy preparing handmade pies for the upcoming Orleans County 4-H Fair July 25 through 30.
Pie making workshops are being held during the weeks before the fair to make sure there is an ample supply for the Leader’s Pie Stand. Proceeds from sales at the stand are used to fund 4-H activities and award trips for 4-Hers, Cooperative Extension officials say.
Jennifer Batt helps each year to organize volunteer staffing for the stand and also volunteers as “project manager” for pie preparation. She says she is hoping to have at least 80 pies assembled before the start of the fair.
During each workshop, fresh fruit is prepped, pastry made and pies assembled. The unbaked pies are then wrapped, boxed, labeled and frozen. The pies will be baked fresh each day during the fair.
This year the pie workshops have benefited from recently completed improvements to the kitchen in the Trolley Building on the fairgrounds. $60,000 worth of renovations have transformed the kitchen into a true teaching kitchen. Pies for the fair are assembled and baked there to keep them in compliance with County Health Department rules, which requires any food sold to the public must be made in a Health Department approved kitchen.
For many years, 4-H families were able to bring baked fruit pies made at home for the stand, and the change in regulations at first proved to be a challenge, fair officials said. The first year of the change, 90 percent of the pies sold at the stand were bought, a decision which disappointed fairgoers who were looking for the highly anticipated homemade pies.
With the workshops in the Trolley kitchen, the Leader’s Pie Stand has brought the number of handmade pies back up to 100 percent, Batt said.
The Leader’s Pie Stand will be open from Tuesday, July 26 through the close of the fair on Saturday, July 30, from noon until 10 p.m. each day.
