Young girls learned proper table manners with chocolate milk and cookies while women of all ages enjoyed tea, finger foods and good company Saturday, all to benefit the Lakeview Area Public Library, Sandy Lake Township.

About 200 girls and women packed Stoneboro Firehall for the Victorian-themed afternoon that also featured a Chinese auction, fashion show of period gowns and display of local artwork from the Lake’s Area Artisan Guild.

“Everybody has been so generous,” said Beverly Dilley, a library volunteer who helped organize the event.

Some of the guests and hostesses wore Victorian-style dresses and hats and local author Gloria Clover spoke on how to create a book.

In one corner of the room, over a dozen girls sat quietly while Becki Williams presented “Little Miss Manners,” telling them to take tiny bites of their pink, heart-shaped cookies and small sips of their chocolate milk.

“Are we all served, sitting straight and tall?” she asked the girls, whose milk was served in china teapots.

Some of the younger girls, including two-year-old Isabella Foust of Sandy Lake, couldn’t help but get a few cookie crumbs on their chins. Her mother Michelle said they were enjoying the girls’ day out.

“I think it’s pretty neat,” she said.

The girls had plastic cups while the rest of the crowd used tea sets some of the ladies brought from home, many passed down from older generations, Mrs. Dilley said.

Colorful cookies, tiny sandwiches and scones, all homemade, were passed around on trays while the smell of tea and excited chatter filled the room.

Mrs. Dilley was pleased with the event, which she’d been helping plan since October.

“We had a lot of fun preparing it,” she said.

Theresa Panner, president of the library’s board of directors, said the purpose of the tea was to pull together members of the community for an enjoyable event to benefit a local organization, especially in the middle of the country’s economic crisis.

“We really need that right now,” she said, adding the tea was a success.