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By Kevin Harvison
Discussion
Holiday dinner is served
Community Thanksgiving meal is available for anyone at the National Guard Armory
Everything is nearly ready for the annual Pittsburg County Community Thanksgiving Dinner.
“We expect to serve between 2,500 and 3,000,” said Pittsburg County Assessor Jim Kelley, one of the elected officials and other volunteers who helped plan the event.
The main tasks remaining early Thursday were expected to be delivering the meals to those who are home-bound, getting the carry-outs ready and serving those who plan to attend the sit-down dinner.
Volunteers plan to begin serving the dinner around noon on Thanksgiving Day at the George Nigh National Guard Armory at the corner of Third Street and Polk Avenue. As in past years, this year’s dinner has been offered free of charge to anyone who wants to participate.
Before the sit-down dinner at the armory, though, plans call for deliveries to be made to those who are home-bound and who made prior arrangements for home deliveries.
More volunteer help in that area is always appreciated.
“We’ll always take people willing to deliver on Thursday,” said Kelley. Those who are willing to help with deliveries can simply show up at the armory early Thursday morning, he said.
“Our effort will be to get to the rural deliveries at 8,” Kelley said.
“At 11, we’ll get the pick-up orders out. Approximately at noon, we’ll start serving.”
Kelley said it’s better for those who want to eat at the armory to plan to begin eating around noon, because once the lines open up, there may not be food available for long in the afternoon, and once the food is gone, crews will start cleaning up at the armory.
A number of volunteers have joined elected officials to help with the project, including people from the community, such as Hugh Finger, who’s assisted with the project for years.
Kelly and fellow volunteer Charlene Spears noted that a lot has gone into the Community Thanksgiving Dinner — both figuratively and literally.
Volunteers have cooked 50 turkeys.
They also know it takes a lot of work to make dressing for the dinner.
“We have 500 pounds of chopped onions and we’ve done eight cases of celery,” Spears said.
“We did 21 pans of cornbread that have 15 ‘recipes,’” she said. By way of example, one “recipe” takes five pounds of flour.
As preparations were under way, mounds of crumbled cornbread had been placed on long tables at the armory, waiting to be added to the dressing mix,.
“We’ll have 250 pounds of mashed potatoes and 30 gallons of giblet gravy,” Spears said.
Volunteers also prepared 20 cases of green beans — which works out to 120 gallons, said Spears. She said 15 gallons of cranberry sauce is also on the menu.
This year’s desserts are pumpkin pie or cobbler, with Deana Cantrell and a youth group from the Choctaw Nation helping in that area.
Because of the logistics, Kelley said participants probably won’t be able to order which they’d prefer. It will come down to the luck of the draw.”
With clear and sunny weather in the forecast, volunteers were confident this year’s Community Thanksgiving Dinner would be as successful as those in years past.
Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.
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