The Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Festival takes place every September at the Abbotsford Tradex. This year they celebrated the 50th anniversary of the event.
Attending is not so much of a choice for me. It’s just what I do — what we do. It’s who we support. Some might go as far to say that it’s who we are. I don’t think I’m that dedicated though. To people of my kind (Mennonites), we simply call the festival the MCC Sale. Simple and easy. I will now refer to the event as such.
Many assume Mennonites to be a type of Amish people, but here in the Fraser Valley, we are just like you, but attend church, eat a lot of various forms of deep fried dough, and can often be defined through our last names (i.e. Janzen, Thiessen, Penner, Sawatsky, and of course, Wiens). I consider myself a Mennonite; therefore, I attend the MCC Sale year after year.
The MCC Sale is a community event, so people from all over the Fraser Valley attend. It’s a place to gather and support worthy causes that help people all over the world where the MCC works. The nonprofit always has many projects on the go, and for last weekend’s festival, most of the funds raised went to providing food assistance to displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, nutritional education to marginalized women and children in Nepal, kitchen supplies and food vouchers to people in Columbia, and education to farmers in Haiti about improving their crops.
The main attraction of the event is the copious amounts of booths serving up some fresh and delicious Mennonite food like vareniki (pierogies filled with cottage cheese and smothered in cream sauce with farmer sausage on the side), borscht (beef broth with all the vegetables and a zwieback, double-decker bun, on the side), rollkuchen (deep fried dough slices covered in icing sugar with watermelon on the side), and portzelky (deep fried raisin fritters). For many people who attend the event, it’s all about the food. I don’t blame them. Not everyone has an Oma down the road with a freezer full of all of the above waiting to force it down your throat. I do though, so I veer away from the enormous Friday night lineups and mingle around. The people who run the food booths are from local churches, usually labouring the weekend away by cooking everything fresh on site.
Food isn’t the only draw: there are live auctions, kids’ activities (like a climbing wall), fair trade goods and thrift items for purchase, a cyclathon, and live musical entertainment by local artists.
I go to the event for a semi high school reunion (I attended Mennonite Educational Institute in Abbotsford from K-12), to catch up with people from my past (I grew up a part of King Road Mennonite Brethren Church), and to see my family (cousins, aunts, uncles, Omas and Opas, and my parents). I do this all on the Friday night of the event, when the crowds are lush and energy is high. They continue the event on Saturday afternoon, but less people are there and the vibe is slower. Of course many would like that, but Friday nights are for me.
The event last weekend brought on a new experience for me: I attended on Saturday afternoon instead of Friday evening. Other commitments kept me from attending my normal time slot, so I settled with the second best. I didn’t see all the people from my past and present whom I was hoping to have a quick chat with, but I did have the opportunity to have just a handful of pleasant conversations with two cousins whom I haven’t seen in a while. Another bonus for attending on Saturday was that we could actually hear each other when we talked. The Tradex was filled with a calmness that I didn’t think I would enjoy as much as I did. No fear of missing out (FOMO) was experienced and I even purchased some food this year — another first for me. Two bags of portzelky and a massive farmer sausage for my husband and I was good to go.
After last weekend, I’m almost certain I will attend the event on Saturdays from now on. It’s a great event to enjoy some tasty food, search through the curated racks of thrifted clothes, and know the money is going to excellent causes.
Photographed: Kaitlin Wiens and Victoria Friesen
Image: Carissa Wiens/The Cascade
