box social

noun

1. a social event, usually to raise funds, at which individually prepared and contributed box lunches or dinners are auctioned off to the participants, the highest bidder in each case often having the privilege of sharing the meal with its preparer.

Word History and Origins

Origin of box social¹

An Americanism dating back to 1925–30

Example Sentences

The story, as ever, relates who will get to take Laurey to the box social, but it exists within a more threatening context than we are used to from so traditionally upbeat a musical theater mainstay.

From New York Times

At the show’s close, the actors presented Tait with a cookbook that included the show’s signature cornbread and a recipe for “The Tequila and the Lime Should Be Friends” margarita, which she plans to serve at a “box social” dinner party.

From New York Times

That production generated tremendous buzz in theater circles, and a long period of competitive scrapping over its future that might be compared to the tense auction of picnic hampers at the box social in the show’s second act.

From New York Times

“Oklahoma!,” which Rodgers and Hammerstein adapted from Lynn Riggs’s 1931 play, “Green Grow the Lilacs,” has a simple plot: at the turn of the century, in the Oklahoma Territory, a cowboy named Curly wants to take Laurey, a farm girl, to a box social, as does Jud Fry, her family’s menacing hired hand.

From The New Yorker

The community’s biggest excitement is a box social and auction to raise money for a school.

From Washington Times