The Amma Community and Senior Center Ramp Dinner

The Amma Community and Senior Center Ramp Dinner The Amma Community and Senior Center has been a part of Amma, WV for as long as I can remember. In the beginning, when I was a young girl, the center meetings were held in the old Amma School House, that was located where the new facility was built in 2005. If memory serves, it was formerly a one-room school house with a kitchen and not much else. I remember going to the center with my mom, Linda Honaker, who was also a member of the center, for baby showers, Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas dinners, yard sales and yes, even the ramp dinners. My mom and many other community members helped make the dinners possible by cooking some of the food in their homes. I remember my mom making HUGE pans of cornbread, cakes and big turkeys and hams to help make these and other such events possible. President of the Amma Senior center, Linda Drennen is truly a force of nature. Dedicated to the cause, and a real supporter of the Amma community, Mrs. Drennen works tirelessly to keep the facility up and running and to make Amma a better place for all of it’s citizens. Her motto is “make the community a better place than it was when you got there” She, as well as the center’s members are a major force in our community. If it wasn’t for the center in the Amma community, many services citizens have come to depend on would cease to exist. Every year on the last Saturday on April, the ramp diner, the center’s biggest fund raiser is held. This year the dinner was held April 25th. It has been a tradition for almost 30 years. This tradition first started at the Linden Masonic Lodge back in the 1960’s, where over 500 meals were produced. Volunteers and members from all around the community come together to help clean, triple wash, cut up and bag 7 bushels of ramps, which were dug in the mountains of Greenbrier County. Linda, at one time told me they were said to have the cleanest ramps around. Linda’s husband Buster, also climbs the woodlands and mountainous terrain to collect sassafras, so they can make their delicious Sassafras Tea to sell alongside the dinners. The menu for this dinner was ham, eggs, fried potatoes, brown beans, corn bread, deserts and drinks for $10 a plate. The members and volunteers also made fresh pies, cakes and cornbread at home to help prepare the meals. 50 pounds of brown beans were cooked and 200 pounds of potatoes were washed, peeled and sliced to fry for these dinners. There was also, 60 dozen eggs used, as well as the 150 pounds of ham that was baked. That is a massive amount of food these wonderful ladies and gentlemen prepared to raise money to keep the center alive and kicking. Countless hours of cleaning, chopping, bagging, cooking, and preparing were employed to make this a successful dinner. Everything for this dinner was homemade and created from scratch. This year they were also selling small cups of additional raw ramps that had been cleaned and chopped, in a small container, for $2. There have been several respected and loved members who have passed on in recent years, which makes some of the ladies wonder every time if this dinner if it will be the last. Though I am no longer a young girl or a senior citizen, I plan to help the center as much as I can and keep it up and running as long as possible. But make no bones about it, there is no way to fill the shoes of Linda Drennen, and the legacy of the Amma Community and Senior Center. So, for those of you looking for a chance to make Amma a better and stronger community for our children, I can think of no better way than by volunteering your time in service of The Amma Community and Senior Center, no matter what your age. By: Carrie Nicholas