The Friends of the Greenfield Community Meetinghouse are happy to report that the fifth annual Greenfield Oktoberfest was a huge success! We have not counted the funds yet, but we are estimating we had about 500 people attend. Thank you to everyone who attended, volunteered, bought raffle tickets, supported our vendors and helped out in more ways than we can count. Oktoberfest is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the Greenfield Meetinghouse, and it takes a year of preparation and planning to pull it off!

For the past few years, the Friends of the Meetinghouse have debated the pros and cons of moving the event to Oak Park. The purpose of Oktoberfest is to raise money for repairs to the Greenfield Meetinghouse, and part of that mission includes getting the community, especially Greenfield residents, inside the building, so people can see both the beauty and potential of the Meetinghouse and the dire need for repairs. However, because of the state of the Meetinghouse, it is no longer really a viable venue for hold large events.

Our first four Oktoberfest events at the Meetinghouse were fantastic, considering the many limitations of this very old building. Over the years, we coped with kitchen and restroom malfunctions, lack of accessibility, broken appliances, the crazy upstairs kitchen configuration and challenges with electricity,  water pressure and parking. We also were never able to have vendors because of the lack of flat space on the town common. 

In  March, the Town of Greenfield received a $1 million CDFA Community Center Program Grant to renovate the lower level community center in the Greenfield Meetinghouse. Thanks to the FGCM’s fundraising efforts over the past five years, the town was able to provide the matching funds required to qualify for this grant. Oktoberfest is a very important part of these efforts. The CDFA funds will allow the town to provide accessibility to the entire building and restore the lower level community kitchen and function space. This grant has made the entire restoration project possible and brings us a lot closer to our goal of about $2 million to complete all four levels of renovations to the Meetinghouse. 

This year, with construction on the Meetinghouse scheduled to begin any day now, it was finally  time to move Oktoberfest over to Oak Park. Oak Park has ample parking, a massive shelter for dining and an incredibly functional commercial kitchen. Parents also love that there is a playground and plenty of room for kids to run around far away from the road. 

Thirty years ago, this same kitchen was built by two of our Oktoberfest crew. Architect Sheldon Pennoyer designed it, and John Hopkins of Monadnock Tent, who donates tents, fencing, tables, chairs and lighting every year, built it with a crew of volunteers.

Oktoberfest is 100% volunteer run. Our small FGCM board has not changed in size since 2019, and the event keeps growing. Each year, we have nightmares about 10,000 people showing up and  going through the food and beer in 20 minutes! Planning Oktoberfest is a delicate balance of growing the event,  but also being realistic about what we can handle as a small volunteer board.

Each year, as with every volunteer group in town, we put the word out and hope to get a little more help, and every year, we are so grateful for the people who pitch in and turn up to help on the day of the event. We are also so humbled and grateful for the many, many people who made an effort to stop by the kitchen and just say thank you. This means the world to our volunteers. Out of maybe 500 guests, we only had one or two complaints.

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No event goes off without some last-minute problems, and we all had our moments of panic in the three days before Oktoberfest.  At 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, I was over in the Meetinghouse all by myself, babysitting what looked like a 50-pound pan of käsespätzle, due to a stove malfunction at Oak Park! Luckily, a kind volunteer, Chris Bates, lit the Oak Park stove and we were able to bring everything back to the park! (The ever-helpful Steve Seigars was dispatched to the Meetinghouse to lift that pan for me!)

Thanks to our site crew of Tim Schloemer, Sheldon Pennoyer, Lenny Cornwell, Greg Austin, Kenny Finn, John Hopkins, and Christian Hall for putting up tents and  fencing, collecting grills and hauling tables and chairs from the Meetinghouse to the park. Special thanks to Schloemer for putting up the signs and banners, which were designed by volunteer Jim Fletcher. 

Thanks to our cooks, Tyler “Keg” Baldwin, who makes our  fabulous spaetzle from scratch, Warren Aldrich, who makes the incredible cheese sauce; and Sharon Andrews,  who made  the fabulous German potato salad, apple crisp, and cookies.

Many thanks to our buffet and kitchen helpers: Maureen Lalime, Adele Hale, Linda Dodge, Sara Timmons, Sylvia Shea, Jennifer White,  Carele Mayer, Carol Baldwin, Pam Cornwell, Zach Aiken, and Gianna Gordon, our incredible teenage dessert queen!

Thanks to our check-in crew, Sheila Nichols, Alison Corrigan, Diane LaCourse, Erika Alusic-Bingham, and Kathy Seigars. Every year we try to make this go a little smoother! Thanks to our awesome grill team, Bruce Dodge, Mike Bingham, Sheldon Pennoyer, John Hopkins, and Abe Timmons.  

Thank you, as always, to the entire Town of Greenfield staff and for all their help and support. Special thanks to Wendy Drouin, Aaron Patt, Catherine Shaw, Dorene Adams and Jim Morris.  Thanks to our Select Board of Tom Bascom, Mason Parker and Mike Borden for their unwavering support. Many thanks as always to the Greenfield Police Department, Chief Brian Giamarrino, Lt. Frank Shea, officer Mike Eneguess and K-9 officer Henry Giammarino. Their presence at Oktoberfest is greatly appreciated. 

Thanks to our musicians, The Fitzmurphys and the Pop Farmers, for a fantastic show.

Special thanks to Jessica Weeks, the unflappable manager of Delay’s Harvester Market, for her extreme patience as we figure out the food order every year. She weathers our last-minute grocery trips and annual hot dog bun panic attacks with calm and good humor every year. Many thanks to our sponsors, including Monadnock Tent, Harvester Market, White Star Software,  Consultingwerk, ProTop, Patriot Medical, Sheldon Pennoyer Architects, the Seigars family  and Seven Hills at Crotched Mountain.

Special thanks to C.J. Hall, director of the Greenfield Recycling Center, for  allowing us to make a late-night dump run. We are also grateful to the members of the Greenfield Bible Church for patiently awaiting the return of  the tables and chairs from the Meetinghouse before church on Sunday.

Thanks to Shannon Bilodeau and all of  the vendors from the Greenfield Farmers’ and Crafters’ Market for being part of the event this year, and to Billie Jean Greene for her help with publicity. 

Finally, thanks to our beer and wine vendors: Post & Beam Brewery, Frogg Brewery, Henniker Brewing, Mountain Base Brewery, Summit Winery and, new this year, Hornburg Brewing, Pinguin Meadery and Cabana Falls Winery. They  make Oktoberfest a truly special event. For information, go to greenfieldmeetinghouse.org.

Jesseca Timmons is secretary of Friends of the Greenfield Community Meetinghouse.