By Heidi Stevens
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — November is normally when Julie Vassilatos is nailing down final details for the South Side Pie Challenge she co-founded with her pal Kate Agarwal.
For the past eight years, hundreds of Chicagoans have piled inside the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club gym to share pie and talk and sing and wait with bated breath for a panel of judges (all professional chefs) to announce a winner in each of the four categories: fruit pie, nut pie, pumpkin/sweet potato pie, cream pie.
Oh, and the University of Chicago Glee Club and other music ensembles usually perform.
“In a good year, the pie contest is kind of an iffy endeavor,” Vassilatos said. (Germ-wise, that is.) “Everything about it is completely wrong for right now.”
Except for the joy and community and charity it engenders — proceeds go to the Hyde Park & Kenwood Interfaith Council’s hunger programs. The event has raised more than $25,000 since 2012.
In April, with the coronavirus keeping us mostly locked down and nerves starting to fray, Vassilatos organized a virtual pie challenge for friends and neighbors. Participants baked a pie of their choosing, made a 2-minute video related to the pie and agreed to donate money to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
People had so much fun making and watching the videos, Vassilatos knew she had to think of a way to keep the November event alive, even if gathering in-person wasn’t going to fly.
She came up with Pie It Forward, which works like this: You bake a pie and bring it to a friend. You make a donation — money or items — to a food-related charity of your choosing. You ask the recipient of your pie to do the same. Vassilatos calls it “a chain of pie and kindness.”
And it’s no longer limited to Chicago. Vassilatos is asking friends and neighbors to spread the word far and wide. A pie map on the Pie It Forward registration site (southsidepie.com) tracks names and locations of bakers and their beneficiaries.
“We’ve got 13 states and three countries so far,” Vassilatos said.
Susan and Chris Clapp moved to Vassilatos’ Hyde Park block over the summer. Susan Clapp was familiar with the South Side Pie Challenge, but hadn’t participated. This year, she baked and delivered two peanut butter pies for friends and donated money to the Chicago Greater Food Depository.
Her parents, Lois and Tony Perrone, arrived from Tennessee recently to live with the Clapps for a few months. On a recent Saturday evening, when neighbors were gathered on their respective front lawns to enjoy a last gasp of autumn warmth, Vassilatos social distance-introduced herself to the Perrones and told them about Pie It Forward.
Lois Perrone let her know she’d already baked and donated a scrumptious apple pie before arriving in Chicago.
“Julie was like, ‘Wait, you’re the one in Tennessee?’” Susan Clapp recalled.
A small world, in terms of pie and kindness.
