Singers for Supper
When Jerry and Jeannie Herbert wanted to make college students and other singles feel more welcome in the choir they led, they came up with a novel enticement: potluck dinner at their house an hour before each Wednesday night rehearsal. "We lived just a few blocks from the church," (Blacknall Presbyterian in Durham, North Carolina) says Jerry, who's since moved away, "and we just opened our home to whoever wanted to show up. At first we footed the bill, but soon the group began volunteering to bring a salad, vegetable, or main dish the following week. While it was mostly Duke University people and career types in the beginning, some young marrieds began coming as well." A large piece of plywood was hauled out each week to rest atop the smaller dining table and thus accommodate more plates. "We really began to feel part of a group," Sue Price, one of the altos, remembers. "We got very close to Jerry and Jeannie and sensed we were bound together in a common ministry." As many as 20 of the 30 choir members eventually came for the potlucks, which went on for a full two years. "It was an opportunity to get to know the other person as more than just a tenor or a soprano," says Jerry. "It was crowded, but fun." Only when the choir membership underwent a change, with a number of students moving on and some couples becoming parents, did the weekly meals stop one May and not resume in September. "But it was a good idea," says Dave Stuntz, Blacknall's current director of music, "and we're thinking now about how to revive it. Instead of using a nearby home, for example, we might move it to the church's kitchen. We need the togetherness that this kind of thing builds."
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