SUMMIT TWP — Kathy Green's red raspberry pies are as much a part of St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church's Lenten fish fries as the fish itself.

The Summit Township resident and member of St. Mary has been baking pies for the church since 1960, but her pie production shifted into high gear around 1988 when the last of her seven children grew up. Green makes 18 pies for the fish fry every Friday during Lent.

“They ask for Mrs. Green's pies; they go fast,” she said. Her pies seldom last until the midway point of the 4 to 7 p.m. fish fry at the church at 821 Herman Road, she said.

“They are all gone. I just bring the pans back to fill them up,” she said.

She said she prepares for her baking by buying in bulk before the start of Lent.

Green said to make the 126 pies needed for each Lenten season takes:

14 boxes of corn starch

70 boxes of Jello

70 pounds of sugar

35 pounds of flour

In addition, Green said she needs 15 quarts of frozen raspberries each Friday.

The fruit comes from the raspberry patch she and her husband, Gerard “Crock” Green, have been tending since 1962.

“My husband picks them and I freeze them,” she said.

Luckily, the raspberry patch is a big producer.

“They will bear twice a year,” said Crock Green. “You cut all the dead ones out and the new ones will come out by themselves. You just have to keep the weeds and stuff out of it.”

Every Lenten Friday, Green starts the pie-making process at 7 a.m.

“It takes about a hour to make the crusts, but I am done at 10:30 a.m.,” she said.

Once the pies are done, the Greens take them to church in their car. Twelve pies ride in the trunk, four on the floor of the backseat and the final two on the front seat.

“If I had an accident between here and there, the poor paramedics wouldn't know if I was bleeding or if it was the pies,” she said.

But she hasn't lost a pie yet.

Rod Scott of Herman, who is in charge of the St. Mary fish fries, said, “She will probably be down here in the neighborhood of around 12 p.m.”

Scott said Green is one piece in a vast assembly of moving parts that must mesh just right to produce the nearly 1,200 fish dinners produced every Friday in Lent.

Since he's been in charge, Scott said, on the day of the fish fry, “I'll start at 1 a.m. and go to 10 p.m.”

The long hours, he said, are needed to oversee the waves of volunteers that turn out beginning the day before to prepare the kitchen and ovens at the church and to chop potatoes, cabbage and vegetables for the scalloped potatoes, cole slaw and tartar sauce and prepare the green beans and Spanish rice that St. Mary serves with its fried fish.

Boiling, baking, stirring and preparing takeout containers goes on for nearly 12 hours before the church opens its doors for diners.

Scott said another three hours are needed to clean up after the dinners end at 7 p.m.

Green's work doesn't end with the pie deliveries.

She said she goes back to the church before 4 p.m., gets takeout meals, brings them home to eat and then goes back to the church when the fish fry starts. She works in the office doing paperwork and bookkeeping while other volunteers pass out the meals and man the fryers.

Asked what she does when Lent ends, she said, “Be glad I don't have to do it, I guess. But then I bake pies for the Easter family dinner.”

Green figures thousands of people have sampled her pies over the years and she's not reluctant to share her recipe.

“I would give out the recipe. A lot of people would try and they say 'Mine didn't turn out like yours.'”

Maybe it's the raspberries, she guessed.