Dayton’s Waffle Shop is back for its 96th year, serving waffle lunches at Christ Episcopal Church from Wednesday, November 11 through Saturday, November 14 — and giving away every dollar it raises, according to the church and the event listing on Dayton937.
The four-day fundraiser at Christ Church, 20 West First Street in Dayton, runs on a new Wednesday-through-Saturday schedule this year, the church said. Through the sale of its waffle and sausage lunches, Christ Church raises funds for mission — and grants 100 percent of the proceeds to small local nonprofits benefiting the poor and marginalized, Dayton937’s listing says.
Few fundraisers anywhere can claim a run like this one. A tradition of more than 90 years at the church, Waffle Shop has turned a simple lunch — waffles, sausage and the fellowship of a crowded church hall — into a reliable annual grant-maker for the Miami Valley’s smallest charities, the ones least able to run fundraisers of their own.
Each spring, the church distributes grants to local nonprofits serving marginalized populations in the Miami Valley through the funds raised at the annual Waffle Shop, according to Christ Church. This week’s lunches are where that spring money comes from.
The event is dine-in or carry-out again this year, Dayton937 says, which keeps the tradition open both to the downtown lunch crowd that has packed the hall for generations and to anyone who wants to take a waffle lunch to go and still be part of the giving.
Volunteers are the engine of the week — the church recruits helpers for everything from batter to cleanup — and newcomers who feel called to join the effort are welcomed, Christ Church said in its Waffle Shop materials.
The timing is part of the tradition’s strength. Waffle Shop week lands in mid-November, when downtown Dayton is at its busiest heading into the holidays and when the nonprofits the shop supports are planning their own winter work with the poor and marginalized families the grants are meant to serve.
What happens next is four days of lunch service, November 11–14, and then the count: every dollar of proceeds headed to small local nonprofits through the church’s spring grants. For Dayton, it is a 96-year-old reminder that good news is sometimes served hot, with sausage, by neighbors.
Photo: Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA