Crane community comes together to make Broiler Festival tradition accessible to all

In Crane, the Broiler Festival is about much more than barbecue chicken. It is a celebration of community, tradition and the people who have helped make the annual event a beloved part of Crane’s history.

(Photo courtesy of Crane Broiler Festival)

This year, Discover Crane Inc. helped make sure that tradition reached even more people by organizing an effort to provide Broiler Festival chicken dinners to local senior housing residents who may not have been able to attend the festivities in person.

Discover Crane Inc. recognized that many residents at Crane’s local senior housing are unable to make it to the festival each year, meaning they can miss out on one of the community’s most anticipated traditions — the annual Broiler Festival chicken dinner.

Rather than allowing those residents to miss out, Discover Crane Inc. reached out to the community for help. The organization asked Crane residents to sponsor meals and volunteer to deliver the dinners. Each meal cost $12, with donations going directly toward purchasing and delivering a chicken dinner to a senior resident. The response from the Crane community was overwhelming.

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See Sarah's story, Seventy-five years of chickens and traditions, for more about the Crane Broiler Festival!

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All 44 meals needed for local senior residents were successfully sponsored, ensuring that every person included in the effort would receive a Broiler Festival chicken dinner. The original fundraising effort featured a flyer with 44 chickens, with each chicken representing one meal that needed to be sponsored. As donations came in, the chickens were marked off, providing a visual reminder of the community’s progress toward its goal. By the time the effort was complete, all 44 chickens had been accounted for.

Discover Crane Inc. expressed its gratitude to everyone who contributed to making the project possible, celebrating the generosity and willingness of the Crane community to step up and help their neighbors. Beyond simply providing a meal, the project helped bring a piece of the Broiler Festival experience to residents who might otherwise have missed it. For many, the festival and its famous chicken dinners are tied to memories, friendships and decades of Crane tradition.

The effort also serves as another example of the way Crane residents continue to look out for one another.

The Broiler Festival has been a gathering place for generations, bringing families, friends and visitors together to celebrate the community. While not everyone is physically able to participate in every festival activity, this year’s meal effort helped ensure that senior residents could still be included in one of the event’s most recognizable traditions.

Discover Crane Inc. thanked the community for its generosity and for helping make the project a success. The organization also expressed appreciation to those who volunteered their time to help deliver the meals. What began as a simple effort to make sure local seniors could enjoy a Broiler Festival chicken dinner turned into another meaningful example of Crane’s community spirit. With all 44 meals sponsored, local seniors were able to enjoy a taste of the Broiler Festival. Proving once again that in Crane, the best traditions are the ones shared with everyone.