From the food preparation to serving the hot plates of food to diners, packing the boxes for home delivery to washing the dishes, there were many volunteers that helped make the annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner in Escalon a success.
Hosted at the city’s Community Center on Thanksgiving Day, there were options to eat in or pick up a meal, along with dozens of deliveries made for those elderly and shut-ins that could not physically attend the dinner.
Working as she has for many years, coordinating the delivery and take out side of the operation, was DeeAnna Jackson.
“I would like to thank God for providing Bev Arnold and Kim Rigg with the idea of starting this Thanksgiving dinner idea – ‘no one should be alone for Thanksgiving’ – about 25 years ago,” Jackson said. “I am thankful that I have been able to continue this event. This Thanksgiving dinner would not be possible to continue if we did not have the community support of volunteers and donations.”
Among the volunteer efforts this year, Jackson said, were people putting up posters, unloading turkeys, some Escalon High School football players unloading supplies before practice and onsite volunteers from Escalon, Modesto, Manteca, Elk Grove, Sacramento and Rio Linda.
“Thank you to all volunteers,” Jackson said.
Officials said there were roughly 185 dinners for pick up or delivery that were called in prior to the Thursday, Nov. 23 dinner and another 130 to 150 take-out dinners ordered the day of. Along with that, there were several dozen people coming to dine in at the Community Center, to share the Thanksgiving meal, some conversation and camaraderie.
Students from the Institute of Technology Culinary Arts program in Modesto handled the bulk of the food preparation, as they have for the past few years.
Other volunteers came in to work at the Community Center on Thursday, getting the food heated up and prepared for serving, with another crew providing the assembly-line style of dishing up the dinners. Orders could be customized with just white meat or just dark meat, with or without gravy, whatever the diner wanted. There were also beverages and plenty of pumpkin pie for dessert.
One crew of volunteers spent time in the morning getting the boxes put together for the delivery drivers, then helped load up the meals into the boxes before they were taken out for delivery by yet another group of volunteers. The longtime volunteer husband and wife team of Bob and Rosita Richway were busy putting together salads and cutting up pies, working cooperatively with fellow volunteer Shirley Yamamura on those tasks.
Jackson said they had enough volunteers for the home deliveries that those making the deliveries could take time to visit with the recipients.
“I have delivery people that ask for families that they have delivered to before,” Jackson said of making the connections.
Donations to help put on the meal, which is sponsored by the Escalon Ministerial Association, also came from individual donations, the City of Escalon, D’Boni’s Pizza, Cost Less, Granite Sacramento, Escalon Chamber, CT Brayton and Hogan Manufacturing, Inc.
“Thank you to all that attended the dinner and allowed us to serve you, meet new friends and extend stories,” added Jackson. “I was told about a couple from San Jose that drove to Escalon to surprise family and they (the family) were not home. They saw our flyer at Starbucks and came for a meal.”
Young volunteer Anabella Azevedo, a freshman at Escalon High, was happy to share the holiday with others and be of service.
“Just to help the community, I know it’s not easy for everybody on Thanksgiving … I just wanted to help everybody out,” Azevedo said.
Brandy Romito was enjoying dinner at the Community Center with her husband Vince and two daughters, Gabriella and Gianna, having spent some time volunteering first and then sitting down to the traditional meal.
“We helped set up yesterday and then we came and delivered a package of dinner this morning,” Romito explained of the family participation.
She said they stopped back at the Community Center to help more but found there were plenty of volunteers, so they got to enjoy the meal.
“It’s a blessing,” she said of the entire Community Thanksgiving Dinner effort.
Jackson said the hope is to get back to more of what the dinner was in its earliest years.
“In the beginning we had church and city bus volunteers to pick up people that had no transportation and bring them to the Community Center for Thanksgiving dinner,” Jackson noted. “This is my goal for Thanksgiving 2024; to find a bus service or limo service to pick up people so they can be served at the hall.”
