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“Say kibbeh!” the photographer shouted through her mask.

“Kibbeh!” 18 church volunteers shouted back.

“Say grape leaves!” the photographer called.

“Grape leaves!” the volunteers responded, laughing by now.

“Say baklawa!” came the final request.

“Baklawa!” the volunteers shouted with a final burst of enthusiasm.

Once their group photo had been taken on a recent Wednesday morning, the women of St. Anthony/St. George Maronite Catholic Church returned to their stations in the community room, where they had been preparing food for a May 16, grab-and-go, a la carte Lebanese Food Sale.

Most of them sat at tables of two or four, nimbly rolling supple grape leaves around servings of raw stuffing.

“I’ve been doing this since I was a baby,” said Samira Chamoun of Wilkes-Barre, who grew up in Lebanon. “I was around 7 or 8 and I’d see my mother doing it and I’d say, ‘Let me roll with you.’ “

“They’ve very good,” Lena Michael of Wilkes-Barre said, adding an explanation of her stuffing technique: “You want to stuff them carefully, so the leaf won’t open up. And you want to stuff them loosely, to leave room for the rice to expand.”

Rice, lean ground meat and spices go into the filling, which Cynthia Collins of Dallas and Joyce Birk of Mountain Top were making in the kitchen.

The volunteers said they expected to use 30 pounds of meat that day, and 120 pounds altogether as they prepare and freeze the stuffed grape leaves, which is just one item the food sale will offer.

“What we’re having is what most people like,” Collins said. “The kibbeh, the grape leaves, the baklawa.”

The a la carte menu includes kibbeh nayeh, a dish of raw meat blended with herbs, spices and bulgur wheat; arras kibbeh, which is the fried version of the delicacy; hummus, which is made from chickpeas, and lubieh, which features green beans served with rice.

If you’re interested in any — or all — of those items, pre-order them by calling Lisa at 570-507-4193 or Cynthia at 570-406-3661. Deadline for pre-orders is May 8.

The food will be ready for pick up in the parking lot of the church, corner of Park Avenue and Dana Street in Wilkes-Barre, starting at 11 a.m. on May 16, and proceeds will benefit the church.

In addition to the savory menu items, a bake-sale table of desserts will be available — and those cookies and pastries don’t have to be pre-ordered. Sales of the baked items, including the baklawa that Samira Chamoun expects to make and the ghreibreh (butter cookies) that Lena Michael promised, will benefit people in Lebanon who are in need of food and medicine.

“Our priest (Father Adib Salameh) knows of many families in need,” Collins said.

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St. Anthony/St. George Church plans May 16 Lebanese Food Sale