Community drawn to annual oyster roast

Published 5:17 pm Saturday, November 14, 2009

The recipe calls for a few hundred pounds of oysters, gallons of clam chowder, two large fire-breathing cookers and about four hundred people. With that, you get a fantastic community event and a great oyster roast.

In spite of the cloudy skies and chill, hundreds turned out Saturday afternoon for the annual C.E. & H. Ruritan Club’s oyster roast in Eclipse. The event is just one of several different types of events the organization plans each year to support the club’s charities.

“This is really more of an event for the community,” Ruritan member Chris Nierman said. “There are other events that generate more for the group, but this is something that has become so much fun for the community.”

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Nierman, a club past president, said the oyster roast, in its sixth year, has been a big reason for the organization’s resurgence over the past ten to 12 years.

“The club had done an oyster roast for years, but it had fallen off, along with the club,” Neirmann. “It was important to bring it back. Living in a waterman community like this, an oyster roast is something we really should be doing.”

Niermann said the proceeds from this event, and other ones throughout the year, go to support groups and individuals in the North Suffolk communities — a big part of the Ruritan mission.

“We don’t send any money to a national organization, rather all the money we generate stays right here and helps people right here,” he said.