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Lisbon Lions ready over 3,000 apple dumplings for weekend’s festival

Pat Tressler makes apple dumplings that the Lisbon Lion’s Club will sell at the Johnny Appleseed Festival this weekend. (Salem News photo by Deanne Johnson)

LISBON — For many, it would not be the Johnny Appleseed Festival this upcoming weekend without an apple-filled baked treat.

The Lisbon Lions Club and their friends were hard at work Monday evening preparing more than 3,000 apple dumplings they offer at the festival each year.

Setting up an assembly line at the Lisbon Lions Club, members of the Lisbon club, the West Point Lady Lions and Lions Club friends from the East Liverpool and Calcutta area worked into the evening peeling and chopping apples, creating the dough, assembling the dumplings and even putting that delicious special syrup that goes on top.

The club was planning to make between 800 and 900 on Monday and will make 3,100 overall. With the assistance of Giant Eagle in Calcutta, which offered to bake this year’s dumplings in large batches, the Lisbon Lions Club will be ready for the crowds expected at this year’s festival.

Bill Mundy, who has long served as the treasurer for the Lisbon Lions Club bingo operation, said the whole dumpling process goes back many years, to the third year the club participated in the Johnny Appleseed Festival and after trying hamburgers the first year and trail bologna the second, the group settled on an apple dumpling recipe provided by one of the members known for baking many pies for her church.

Without knowing how many they needed, the club made 500 the first year and during a three-day festival they sold out on the second day. At one point they made and sold 5,000 through the years, but now about 3,000 seems to be the right number each year with plans to sell about 2,000 of those made on Saturday.

Mundy said they could not do this without the support of the ladies and others who come to join them making the dumplings each year. He would like to see more younger residents interested in helping their community come help with the dumpling process.

Although COVID-19 affected every organization, Mundy said things are coming back for the Lisbon Lions Club. Bingo has resumed on Sundays and people are returning to play. The club holds bingo every Sunday except Easter and this week when they hope to be selling out of apple dumplings at the festival.

djohnson@mojonews.com

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