Here in Scranton, there is seemingly a church on every corner. (If it’s not a church, it’s a funeral home or a bar. There’s a relation there somewhere…) In fact, it has been said that you can tell the ethnic make-up of the block simply by knowing the church’s name. We have St Francis of Assissi (Italian), St Mary’s (German), St Stanislaus (Polish), Nativity of Our Lord (Irish), etc.
With the large amount of churches, comes a large amount of Church Picnics. They are held usually every weekend, from Thursday to Saturday, and feature food, music, games for the kiddies, raffles, wheels of chance, crafts booths, sometimes a pingo hall, and the ever popular Beer Tent.
In smaller communities, a similar picnic would be the Fire Company picnic, which raise funds for the Volunteer Fire Company of a particular borough, town, or region. Sometimes, these are larger and include firetruck rides, carnival kiddie rides, more games (again, like a carnival midway), and sometimes fireworks.
What are block parties such as these like in your area?
There are none. Occasionally, a church will have a “carnival” fundraiser, but never more than once a year, and churches here aren’t neighborhood-centric.
I left the OP kind of confusing. Each church only has 1 picnic per year, usually around the same time every year. St Stanislaus, for example, is very close to my house, so you can hear all the polka music from my front porch and it’s usually the only time of the year I get to enjoy glompki, pierogies, and halushki (mmmm, cabbage…). They have their block party the middle weekend of July every year.
The churches around here don’t do that either. There are the usual Wednesday nite suppers, but it’s basically for members of the church. I think Southern churches are mostly poor man’s county club anyway.
As far as festivals/neighborhood picnics, those are rare enough to be considered non-existant. I think there is one Greek Orthodox Church closer to downtown Atlanta that does have a festival of sorts every year, though.
Around here, lots of churches do an annual barbecue supper. It’s more of a fundraiser than anything else. You pay about $6 for a dinner (pork barbecue, slaw, hush puppies, and sweet tea) or $3 for a sandwich, and all the proceeds go to the church. Anyone from the community is welcome to come. I don’t usually go to them anymore, since my husband is a vegetarian, but my family would go to the neighborhood churches’ (and in North Carolina, it’s definitely churches plural) when I was a kid.