Cindy Esser helps keeps things running smoothly during the Friday Lenten fish fries at St. Kilian Roman Catholic Church in Cranberry Township.

Butler County is filled with a variety of people doing interesting things. This weekly feature offers snapshots of some of them by asking five questions. The latest installment appears below.

CRANBERRY TWP — Operating a successful church fish fry during Lent takes much more than just heating up the oil and throwing open the doors.

At St. Kilian Roman Catholic Church, 7076 Franklin Road, the duties are split between Lee Ann Stumm, who handles the cooking activities, and Cindy Esser, who's the coordinator for all the other activities needed to run the event during the six Fridays of Lent.

The fish fries started four years ago. Two volunteers, Sheila Coulson and Stumm, asked Esser to help them orchestrate the events. Preparations start two months before the first dinner.

Esser, whose tasks begin on Thursday afternoon and run until the last plate is served on Friday night, took time out to answer five questions.

QUESTION: How many people does it take to put on the fish fry?ANSWER: Our entire operation takes about 100 people. It starts on Thursday with people prepping. We make everything homemade: the cole slaw, all the sauces.In addition those volunteers are the ones working the fry (Friday) night.We have volunteers who do all the sauces and cole slaw. Then we have the “breaders” come in, and people cooking the pizza and perogies.When the fish fry starts we have volunteers cooking the food, serving the food. We have waitresses and bussers, the cashiers and we have people doing the takeout, bagging the food.And we have people doing the phone and online orders. We do one thousand dinners a night. We do about 500 dine-in and 500 takeout each and 300 are online and phone-ins ordering ahead.In addition to serving all those meals, we provide meals to local nursing homes. We start cooking about 2:30 p.m. and start packaging meals for the nursing homes. We have drivers who take them to the Penn-Mar and Paramount nursing homes. We feel we are giving back to the community.

QUESTION: How much money does the fish fry raise and how is it allocated?ANSWER: It goes toward the parish, whatever the parish decides to apply it for. We don't have it earmarked for anything in particular.With the Catholic Church, there are certain goals that need to be met. Our goal is to raise $50,000 in profits. We made it last year, and so far this year. It costs about $4,000 a week to put the fish fry on. So far this season, we have over $10,000 in revenue.In addition, we have corporate sponsorship, place mat sponsorship and personal donations. That's how we get to our goal.”

QUESTION: How did you get picked to lead the organization?ANSWER: A few parent volunteers felt that a great fundraiser for the parish would be a fish fry.With the new facility, the new kitchen and the spacious cafeteria, it allowed us to offer a great event.With the help of neighboring Catholic churches, we were able to figure out how to put a fish fry on.“I have good organizational skills, good people skills and probably just the ability to execute. I also have sales and marketing skills. I went out and got $7,000 in sponsorships.

QUESTION: How much fish do you go through in a night and what kind is it?ANSWER: It's cod, and we go through 550 to 600 pounds of fish in a night.

QUESTION: Have you dropped or added any menu items due to popularity or lack of popularity?ANSWER: Last year we tested the waters and decided to run specials. We decided to run different menu items: perogies and a vegetable.We identified that people loved the perogies and didn't love the vegetable. The perogies are on the menu this year.