The saga of a well-worn stove

The delivery of a new stove would hardly make headlines under most circumstances.

But the replacement of a more than 30-year-old cooker at Shelter Island Presbyterian Church certainly deserves attention for the decades of service it gave to both the church and many events in the community.

And then there was solving the problem of getting the old out and the new in.

Until its oven quit about a month ago, it enabled the town to provide Senior Dinner Bell lunches at the church on Mondays and Fridays and to deliver lunches to homebound residents on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, plus many other community events, from Election Day lunches to feeding Boys and Girl scouts.

When Karin Bennett, who oversees the town’s Nutrition Program, informed church officials the stove had made its last meal, the church Session, or governing board, was quick to approve the purchase of a replacement.

“It’s been a great handshake,” Ms. Bennett said about the cooperation between church and town officials.

If working out funding was without trauma, the physical process of replacing the stove on Monday was beset by obstacles. It took the expertise and patience of a two-man team to complete the mission.

Long time employees of a restaurant equipment and supply outfit, Greg Legrega and Bob Brown, were on site for more than two hours negotiating the path that initially had seemed nonnegotiable.

The unit that had stood so faithfully in the church kitchen all those years was not about to surrender its place without a fight.

It didn’t take the men long to determine that the only way they would get the stove moved was to strip it of knobs and many other elements to move it out of the kitchen, into the dining area, roll it out and load it onto a truck.

Mr. Legrega and Mr. Brown had to remove the kitchen door, and wondered for awhile if they might have to remove molding from around the door to widen the path for the stove to parade through.

After many starts and stops, they finally succeeded. Then came the second question.

Would the replacement stove be too wide to be brought into the church?

Careful measurements were taken and the men determined that by turning the new stove on its back, they would likely get it to its destination. But the effort required a great deal of patience and strength on their part.

They maneuvered it through the front door of the church dining room, had to remove the splash guard from the top of the unit, then unscrew the feet from the bottom, and inch-by-painfully-slow-inch finally were able to get the stove through the kitchen door to its new home.

On went the bottom wheels and a “back splash.” Connecting and recleaning the unit is due to take place this week. Ms. Bennett is hoping a hot lunch will be provided at the Dinner Bell by Friday and be up and running for the annual Election Day luncheon next Tuesday.

As for the old stove that was dismantled and rolled away, it’s not headed for a scrap heap, Ms. Bennett said. Instead, someone familiar with the unit has plans to repair it and re-purpose it so it can be used by another program somewhere else.

With the new stove in place, homebound seniors who wish to have lunches delivered can call Ms. Bennett at (631) 749 0291.