This year the 4th Thursday fell on November 28. Some organizations have offered the traditional Thanksgiving menu to the general public free of charge (or by donation if so desired) for dozens of years. Other organizers are more recent. The full menu includes roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, squash (e.g. combined acorn, butternut, maybe hubbard varieties of squash + butter and sugar, salt and pepper), stuffing, green beans (in casserole or alone), cranberry relish and either pumpkin or apple pie for dessert.
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| typical plate heaped with the full menu and added relish tray vegetables |
The biggest venues are able to feed diners and volunteers in the space of a few hours numbering 1,000 or more. Smaller or less well established community dinners might serve just a few dozen people. But what is common across these settings, apart from a similar menu, is that money and in-kind donations from local sources supply the materials, decorations, and sometimes the venue rental fee, if there normally is one applied. Furthermore, there is usually a great number of people or organizations keen to offer some of their time in the preparation, serving, or clean-up. The actual coordination, promotion, and soliciting of donations is carried out by a steering committee. It may well be common for one or more churches to directly support the meal with people to work, to dine, to decorate, and to clean up. Sometimes an optional (ecumenical) worship service of song, (e.g. Christian) scripture and commentary will precede the public celebration of the community spirit on the occasion of the meal, as in this case yesterday.
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| standing up to sing a few verses of the hymns |
Depending on the community, there may be many who know each other by name or just by face. Others may be unfamiliar. Still others will be old friends of many years. In much bigger demographic spaces, there may be few people who the diners have seen here and there around the city. The atmosphere for dining is very rare; something seldom experienced outside of this setting: (1) there is no cost - unlike a restaurant there is no tipping, no assigned server to meet one's wishes, (2) there may be some familiar people sharing one's table, or it could be the others are strangers, (3) but the premise of celebration (as in an open-house for a new high school graduate; or like the wedding receptions that bring family, friends, and unknown people together) and the theme of Giving Thanks tends to set the atmosphere: to be friendly and helpful and respectful of one another. In other words, there is an expectation that partly binds everyone in the room together, despite the various degrees of familiarity or strangerness that underlies the relationships there: "we all belong to this community and can express our gratefulness in common for the wonderful food and hospitality being offered here and now." It is neither a business transaction, nor a private family gathering. Instead it is somewhat family-like and also a public good or common resource.
The photos here come from the Clinton Community Thanksgiving Celebration and Dinner, which began its first 10 years hosted at one church, then moved to a community hall, and now this year has grown big enough to fill the county 4-H fairgrounds building. In the first years the public perception was that a community kitchen or feast was characterized for poor people, individuals far from home and family, or for people finding themselves alone on the holiday. But from the start the organizers tried to promote a more inclusive meaning of the shared meal: not just a stop-gap or last resort when a home-made feast was not possible or desirable. Rather this offered a chance to feel joyful in the company of others. An analogy might be the movie theater experience versus the home theater experience. Somehow experiencing the program all together makes things different - not just bigger, brighter, louder, but also witnessed by people you know and others you don't know. But for a few emotional peaks you are part of a larger wave of feelings. Likewise, to feast with others is particularly satisfying. There is nothing wrong with dining at home or joining a few friends at a restaurant. But a volunteer driven, community supported, and publicly conducted celebration has very strong meaning and feeling: joy, gratitude, delight, surprise, satiety, memories and reminiscing, and so on.
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| serving line staffed with volunteers |
Logistically there are sometimes too many people who want to volunteer; sometimes too much of a particular food (in-kind) donation; and sometimes a headcount that falls higher or lower than expected, and so on. Imperfect, though, the process is, somehow everyone seems to enjoy the meal, the interactions, and the achievement of the larger project. In the case of the community dinner shown in these pictures there is a strong connection to the town's food pantry. So any food that is cooked but not served will be portioned into storage containers to be frozen and offered to people who rely on the food bank to make ends meet each month. Similarly, food that was received but not prepared (in excess of the needs being planned for) also is given immediately afterwards to the food pantry staff of volunteers. So there is relatively little waste.
Some years to food preparation volunteers have reserved the peelings of vegetables to go to a local farmer's hogs. And cans and bottles can easily be set aside for the city's curbside recycling service. So far, though, paper plates and cups have been resorted to when the venue shifted away from the church and its built-in dishwashing equipment. So the feast does produce many bags of landfill waste. At the present historical moment that seems to be the price of producing a community dinner that fosters feelings of belonging together in a community. It will be interesting to see if vestiges of community spirit live on many years from now.
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| napkin prompts the reader to consider conservation of resources and energy |
