Ok here are just a few suggestions from the peanut gallery (or a former assistant pastors wife who did these stinkin dinners about every month for 3 yrs!!!!) GRRRRR
Ok first of all the menu's that were posted are wonderful and actually all but one of them are identical to ones we have used.
2. The idea of the takeout boxes is wonderful and it is something we did because we had a lot of elderly families that just couldnt handle standing and waiting so we had about 30 of the takeouts ready at the end of service and then the rest we made as we went that way we wouldnt lost out on much food.
3. We did the majority of it by the main course asking all of the ladies to donate 5-10 dollars each and either bring a dessert or bread and one can of the selected veggie for that dinner. This makes the veggie about the only thing that has to be made right then... You heat the rolls up right at the end and you can actually have most of the main course finished by the time you head off to church. Set it in the oven on low and it will be nice and ready for service at the end of church.
It is really best for 1 or 2 people to prepare the main course and we either met at the church or sometimes at each others home and did the majority of the prep the night before or sometimes if it was something that would refridge good we actually made it the night before. Tooooo many cooks in the kitchen is never a good thing and especially if you have a small work area it is very hard on the day of right before to be preparing all of this food.
4. As for charging for the dinner. This all depends upon the demographics of your church. We did the donation thing for a long time but then we ended up buying a building in a very poor part of town and (disclaimer I am not trying to sound rude as our church had a ministry that did nothing but feed homeless every week and also a halfway house ministry but this was not that) word ended up getting out that we were having dinners at the church and it ended up being a free for all... we spent 350 one day and made 85 dollars!!! It killed us! It was all funded by the youth dept and we didnt have a lot of funds at that time and so we ended up even deeper.
It is best to set a charge for the dinners if you have any chance of these things happening. 5 dollars was the perfect amount and as long as the dinners are announced in advance everyone should be able to afford that as it is being done as a fundraiser. Now for an actual church dinner thats another story.. we never charged for our thanksgiving and christmas dinners just because that was dinner for the church... so depends on the reason you are having the dinner and the demo of the dinner.
Hope some of this has helped you and if I think of more I will let you know!
God bless you in your adventures! I can gladly say I will NOT be doing the church dinner this year!!!!!!!
At that time that left us 30 minutes to finish preparing everything!! Aaaaaaauughhhhhh!!!!
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