| The annual St. Paul's Lobster Boil was started in May of 1969 and has become a DeKalb tradition marking the start of spring. Ed Fitzgerald, or as we all lovingly called him, "Fitz", a native New Englander, organized lobster boils for the staff at the General Electric plant in DeKalb where he was a supervisor. The St. Paul's Episcopal Church Women (ECW) thought it would be great for St. Paul's to hold one as well. The first one was organized primarily by Norma Fitzgerald and Mary Roberts. The Lobster Boil is always on the third Saturday in May.
Where do we get the lobsters? The lobsters used to be flown from Boston on United Airlines so one of the many Lobster Boil Day teams included the airport crew who would take Bob Harkness's truck and drive into O'Hare to pick them up. Now they are picked up by refrigerated truck and delivered to our door. The process has evolved over the years into a well-oiled machine involving parishioners of all ages.
It is a wonderful parish community event that brings us all together of an afternoon of fellowship and fun. A percentage of the proceeds have always been distributed to local charities and in the last several years that amount was increased to 50%. The remainder is used for general parish support, the discretionary fund and ECW activities.
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