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History of the Dinner

Tradition, camaraderie, friendship, and relatives keep the Verboort Sausage & Sauerkraut Festival thriving in our small Dutch community. Under giant sequoia trees, about 500 residents welcome roughly 10,000 guests each year. Preparation takes months — sauerkraut alone ferments six weeks in fifty-gallon buckets. Nearly all food is local and handmade.

Sauerkraut preparation at Verboort

This tradition bonds the community. Children take pride in helping; volunteers welcome guests year after year. Across from the church, farms and neighbors still embody the open, hardworking spirit that shaped present-day Verboort.

Community members at the festival

Proceeds support Visitation Catholic School at the heart of Verboort. Sausage is not the root of this community, but it allows an annual celebration of heritage — a place many are proud to call home beneath the redwoods.

Longtime Verboort community member