Over nearly 20 years of Birmingham-Southern history, the love for home-cooked meals has not changed a bit.

This year’s Mama’s Home Cooking will be the 19^th annual dinner where families, students, faculty, and staff cook and enjoy favorite homemade meals to celebrate the spring term. The BSC community knows the event as one that brings hundreds of people together, but it was much smaller when Chris Herrington ’05 got the idea in October 2002.

“After a couple months of cafeteria food, I was very ready for a good home-cooked meal,” he remembers.

Serving as the RA of New Men’s sixth floor at the time, Herrington invited the students from his hall home for dinner a few months into the fall term. His mom made pans of lasagna at their home in Alabaster and packed leftovers for the 13 students when they headed back to campus.

“I knew that many of the guys didn’t have family close enough to just pop in for dinner, so I figured they could at least borrow mine for a night,” Herrington says. “I just remember a bunch of guys eating lots of amazing food, cracking jokes, and having fun. I think everyone really felt relaxed and at home.”

Herrington never expected for word to get out about his mom’s home cooking and for BSC to adopt the idea. The next year, multiple parents and families gathered in the Attic to bring dinner to students. Soon, the yearly event established a beloved tradition that we celebrate when students complete their E-Term projects.

Dana Bekurs, current assistant dean of students, joined BSC’s Office of Student Affairs (now Student Development) in 2004 and fell in love with Mama’s Home Cooking. She also immediately connected with Herrington, who was a senior that year.

“There is a small group of students who leave a legacy at their institution without even trying. Chris is in that group,” Bekurs says. “I have never seen an event like this anywhere else.”

After Herrington graduated, Student Affairs staff like Bekurs and Cheryl Waters, residence life assignment coordinator, kept the tradition alive and watched attendance grow to more than 500 students and parents. It’s become BSC’s own version of a Thanksgiving feast.

Bekurs returned to the Hilltop last year after leaving in 2009, so this year’s event will be her first Mama’s Home Cooking in more than a decade. She is always impressed by the dishes families prepare – from ribs to shrimp ‘n’ grits – and how far some people travel to be here.

“Some parents keep coming to Mama’s Home Cooking, even if their kids aren’t at BSC or are still traveling for E-Term,” she says. “They are now folded into our community.”

Many parents come to serve food to the students, while other families deliver dishes to campus or request favorite meals for staff members to make. Throughout the years, Herrington has loved hearing stories about the same family hospitality and good conversation that he experienced during his time as a student.

“I never would have imagined that my little one-time hall event would survive this long and grow to be so popular,” he says.

Herrington currently lives in Richmond, Virginia, and is an assistant professor of economics at Virginia Commonwealth University. Bekurs hopes that he will make an appearance at the 20^th Mama’s Home Cooking next year.

The event will be held Monday, Jan. 27 from 6 to 8 p.m. in Bruno Great Hall as students finish up E-Term courses and return to campus. If you are planning on bringing or delivering a dish, fill out the Mama’s Home Cooking form to sign up.