TORRINGTON – There was just a moment Sunday when the Rev. Brian Gross thought he was going to be alone, in the middle of Main Street, with a bunch of empty chairs.
But that turned out not to be the case as people started arriving, bags, boxes and slow cookers in hand, for the first of what Gross hopes will be several Community Potluck Dinners in downtown Torrington.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Gross, pastor of All-Saints Episcopal Church in Torrington, said Monday. “Everyone kept asking me, ‘When are we going to do this again?’ I said, ‘Let’s do this first one, then we’ll go from there.’”
It was about two years in the thinking about and planning stages. Gross wanted a venue where people could get together – politics, religion and all the other baggage people carry every day aside – and share a meal.
“We don’t really have any events just to get together for,” Gross said. “Everything we do is for something – to raise money for something, to support something. Or to be against something.
“I wanted something to just enjoy being together, if for no other reason than to just enjoy being together,” he said. “Getting together on anything seems to be a little more difficult these days.”
When the final tally was done, some 220 people agreed with the premise. Groups and individuals from around the community donated tables, chairs, paper plates and plastic cutlery and helped set up a line of tables that stretched most of the 2000 block of Main Street.
Another row of tables set up under the store-front awnings on the west side of the street were laden with food of all kinds, drinks and more. Promptly at 4 p.m., Gross called the assembled together for a prayer of thanks, concluding with the simple admonition, “Let’s eat!”
About the only gray mark on the horizon of the day was the weather, with heavy storm clouds overhead threatening to open up on the group. But, despite the fact Gross learned later some people didn’t go downtown Sunday because of the weather, it couldn’t dampen the spirits of those who did.
Gross would like to see the event repeat at least once a year. He’s already received offers from one of the churches – he didn’t specify which one – for a musical group within their congregation to provide entertainment.
And, going forward, he wants to be sure the event – if it is repeated – stays in line with his original idea. Gross doesn’t want to see it become “overwhelmingly produced.
“My only idea was to have tables down the middle, tables on the side for the food, and everybody eat,” he said. “Not to have it become this big production so it has to be so produced expectations are different.
“Looking down Main Street, seeing people getting out of their cars, bringing the food – that was nice,” Gross said. “I was excited just to see the tables down the middle of the street before anybody got there. It was all fitting into place.”
