Cool treat to beat the heat

One way to get relief from oppressive heat is with a dish of ice cream — even better if that ice cream is homemade.

A good-size crowd gathered at the Swedesburg Evangelical Lutheran Church Parish Hall Tuesday afternoon for food, fellowship and homemade ice cream.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing,” the Rev. Mark Youngquist, pastor of the church, said. “It’s wonderful food and wonderful fellowship. We missed it last year.”

The annual meal and ice cream social is organized by the Swedesburg Churchmen.

The event’s purpose is twofold: to provide fellowship and to raise money for area organizations.

“Bringing people together, that’s our goal,” Gary Anderson said. “Most of our money gets disbursed locally.”

Monte Kann added, “For the most part, we usually pick four or five different charities: the Tolson House, the Fellowship Cup, the Food Resource Bank, the Men’s Refuge House in Olds.”

The meal included grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, baked beans, potato salad and desserts. The cost was a freewill donation.

“We just added the meal about five or six years ago,” Anderson said. “One of our members is a cattleman, so he brings a grill up and does hamburgers and hot dogs on that.”

The highlight, though, is the homemade ice cream.

“We got together this afternoon and made 22 gallons of homemade ice cream, all from the same recipe,” Anderson said. “One guy mixes it, and the other guys make it in the old fashioned wooden buckets.”

No one could recall exactly when the annual tradition began. Anderson estimated 20 years ago, while Ralph Sandeen estimated maybe 15 years go.

“We wanted to have some kind of fellowship in early August to get the community involved and show our appreciation to them, too,” Sandeen said.

He estimated that the meal and ice cream social draws about 70-80 people each year.

“We’ve had a great response from the community to come out and enjoy the fellowship,” Sandeen said. “I believe that it’s something that people look forward to every year.”

Anderson added, “There’s a lot of people who aren’t from our church, and that’s great.”