By KATE POSS

Enjoying the pure pleasure of heaps of dripping-hot curly fries mounded in cardboard boats on checkered deli paper is an experience not to be missed at the annual Whidbey Island Fair.

Running the booth for the past 18 years or so, South Whidbey Assembly of God Church and Island Christian Academy volunteers, along with teens from the island’s Young Life program, serve up 2.5 tons each year of spuds freshly cut with an electric drill attached to a special spiral cutter before being thrown into a deep fryer and cooked to crispy perfection.

Pastor Matt Chambers, in his 38th year of shepherding the church community of about 200 families on Maxwelton Road, explained that the curly fries booth sales raises funds for many causes.

“The amount varies year to year somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000,” said Chambers. “The last few years, the booth has raised $10,000 for ICA and $10,000 for Young Life.”

Young Life is a Christian youth outreach ministry offering clubs, camps and leadership skills. The Island Christian Academy serves about 150 students from preschool through twelfth grade and has been a part of the Assembly of God campus since 1990.

Another beneficiary of the curly fries booth proceeds includes overseas orphanages and ministries in Uganda and other countries.

“Over the years we’ve donated funds to orphanages in Thailand, Benin, Liberia and Uganda,” Chambers said. “We’ve drilled water wells in Africa. Most of the work we support is in Uganda — I’m going there two days after the fair. I’ll spend a couple of weeks doing leadership training. We’ve had a ministry in Uganda for more than 35 years.”

Chambers said this year he’s going to dedicate a church built of bricks made by the locals in a Ugandan village. He is humbled by the villager’s dedication to education and improving their communities.

“The people are unbelievable,” he said. “Their resources are so limited. Education is so important there. In one village, they have 300 students in a shack that has four rooms. They rotate them in and out. Half come from a Christian background. Half from a Muslim background. The kids walk for miles to school on dirt roads.”

The relationship with Uganda was first cultivated during the 1980s when a young Ugandan came to Whidbey Island through a program sponsored by a SWAG family. Steve Mayanja later graduated from a Seattle bible college and returned to his Ugandan village and started a church.

“Now they have 500 churches in eight countries,” Chambers noted. “We have worked with him since 1987-1988.”

Besides its ongoing relationship with Uganda and Steve Mayanja, who occasionally visits his sister church in Langley, curly fries proceeds have benefitted the Good Cheer Food Bank. The fries sales also built a home that provided a “hand up” to someone who needed a place to live.

Two years in a row SWAG put aside $10,000 to build House #7 of the nine Tiny Homes in the Name of Christ or THiNC on Cascade Avenue in Langley. Spearheaded by the dedication of THiNC’s founder Coyla Shepard, various volunteer organizations adopted one 264-square foot cottage which averaged $34,000 in building materials, utilities and permitting costs. Residents moved in two years ago.

Deborah Hedlund, a former THiNC board director, recalled the donation.

“SWAG was one of the first churches to volunteer their help and follow through,” Hedlund texted. “They were an integral part of THiNC being successful and we are grateful for their help. We had over 250 people contributing money and/or labor. It was truly a community effort accomplished without federal or community taxes.”

The curly fries booth, which also serves buffalo burgers, corn dogs, burgers, hot dogs and pop, was once operated by Whidbey Island Coffee founder Dan Ollis.

“Dan came to us and asked if we’d be interested in taking it over,” Chambers recalled. “He had to pay people to do the curly fries. We said yes, let’s do it. We use volunteers. It takes about 75 shifts of volunteers over the time of the fair. We buy 5,000 pounds of potatoes from Charlie’s Produce. We hand cut each potato. We have a drill with a cutter. We have people cutting fries all day long. We have four deep fryers going pretty much non-stop.”

Accompanying the curly fries over the four days of the fair, the booth goes through 135 Costco-sized ketchup containers. Chambers said he does some of the cooking and pitches in wherever he’s needed at the fair.

In addition to the curly fries/burger booth, Island Christian Academy, also has a breakfast booth at the fair the past 35 years.

“It runs from 7 a.m. to noon each day,” said Chambers. “We do biscuits and gravy, French toast, sausage, ham, country fried potatoes and pancakes.”

While the fair’s food booth raises funds for academy, the school also hosts an auction each November to supplement operating costs. Each year, members of the church community make a Christmas offering to Ugandan villages.

“We say it’s Jesus’ birthday, what would you give?” Chambers said. “Donations go for church construction and building water wells.”

So, this year when visiting the fair, give a moment to think about how the curly fries you are enjoying are going a long way to improve someone else’s life.

For more information, visit the South Whidbey Assembly of God’s webpage at swagchurch.com.