Presbyterian Support Otago counsellor Flo Clarke said 70 past residents had registered for lunch and reminiscing, some coming from Australia.
She was pleased with the response from the 99 people invited.
''The people who have responded are very keen and excited. There's a lot of stories to be told. It is like a family reconnecting.''
Ms Clarke started working as a supervisor at the home in 1982 and found the job ''busy, challenging and rewarding''.
She would talk about the history of the home, she said.
Robert Glendining had offered to pay for the building costs of a large home to care for 60 children on about 4ha of donated land in Andersons Bay.
The ''roomy, well-designed and well-constructed'' home was opened in 1913, Ms Clarke said.
Forty boys were living at the home in 1928 and girls lived in Nisbet House on Waverley Hill, Ms Clarke said.
In 1930, three cottages called the Glendining Presbyterian Children's Homes were built on the Andersons Bay site, each cottage able to accommodate 10 children.
When the original home was demolished in 1976, the cottages continued accommodating 24 children until their closure in the early 1990s, Ms Clarke said.
''It was the withdrawal of government funding that forced this closure and was a very sad time.''
The cottages were now privately owned, she said.
