A hearty helping of community spirit: Volunteers serve hundreds at Ronan's community meal
RONAN — Thirty-two turkeys, 45 pies and 100 pounds of potatoes.
It sure does take a lot of food to serve a hungry community on Thanksgiving.
Volunteers dished up hearty helpings of community spirit last Thursday at the Eighth Annual Ronan Community Thanksgiving Dinner. More than 340 residents, families and friends gathered at the community center for a delicious meal, complete with all the fixings, as well as hours of musical entertainment and friendly conversation.
“The volunteers are what make the event successful and the donations from the community make it possible to put on,” organizer Dana Grant said. “A lot of people bring donations of food or money.”
A total of 45 volunteers signed up to help put on the annual dinner. Volunteering didn’t just start on Thursday, either. On Wednesday, a group came in to help peel the potatoes, which Lake Farms provided, and begin to cook the turkeys, many of which were donated by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
“It takes a while to peel 100 pounds of potatoes,” Grant said.
All of the day’s musical entertainment was organized by the Pettit family, who was also one of the groups to perform. Gino Harper, Logan Stevens and Sharon Cole each played set during the four-hour event.
“The musicians were all volunteers too,” Grant said. “The Pettit family does a great job getting everyone signed up and set up, and they bring all their own equipment so it’s really easy for us.”
One of the obvious challenges to putting on a dinner of this magnitude is estimating how much food will be needed without going overboard.
“You want to make sure you have enough for everyone,” Grant said. “We had a little too much, so we distributed some food to a few seniors we know and gave some to a couple of the youth homes in the area. We are going to be donating the rest to Soup’s On in Polson.”
So, nothing will go to waste — even what’s left of the seven gallons of jello, eight gallons of gravy and 42 pounds of canned vegetables.