This fall, Main Street Manning, partnered with the Clarendon County Chamber of Commerce, will host a Farm to Table event. Held in the courtyard at the offices of Land Parker & Welch Attorneys at Law, the event will be on September 18.
“This is our annual meeting. But instead of having a meeting and a dinner and sitting around talking and giving awards, we chose in the very beginning to do something that promotes Manning and the surrounding area,” said Marie Land, who heads up the committee for this year’s event.
In the past, Main Street Manning has hosted events such as Women in Business, which allowed any woman in the Manning vicinity who had a business license to set up a trade show booth at the old Belk building; a historic stroll through the downtown historic business area, hosted in conjunction with the Historical Society; a new business stroll, which took guests on a walk through new businesses in Manning, with hors d’oeuvres served; and an Events Event, which set up an outdoor trade fair with event planners, caterers, printers and any business involved in putting on events.
Each event has been designed to involve different aspects of the community. As Main Street Manning focuses on Manning, they have involved the Clarendon County Chamber of Commerce, allowing them to include all of Clarendon County.
This year’s event will be a supper which highlights local agriculture. All food items will have been donated by local farmers, including the meats, vegetables and fruits. Local restaurants will assist with the cooking, and local residents will help with set up, serving and clean up.
The dishes served will be created with meats and vegetables easily obtained from many local gardens or farms. However, the dishes won’t be things you find in the local restaurants. Each dish, from hors d’oeuvres to entrees to desserts, will be designed to highlight different ways to serve everyday foods, providing an array of tastes and styles for attendees to enjoy.
A limited number of tickets, priced at $25 per person, will go on sale the first week of August. The tickets may be purchased at the Clarendon County Chamber of Commerce at 19 N Brooks Street or at Land Parker & Welch at 29 S Mill Street.
“We’ve never charged for anything, because that’s not our purpose, but we had to charge for this. This is to cover our cost, but we also had to know how many people were coming,” said Land, who stressed that most farm to table events are $50 or higher, with the recent event in Columbia costing $100.
“We’ve kept the cost as low as possible,” said Land. Any additional proceeds, above the cost of hosting the event, will be donated to a local Clarendon County food pantry.
