Community dinner brings people together
Megan Strickland
Volunteer Roland Godan shows off a portion of more than 36 turkeys prepared for the feast.
Megan Strickland
Community members share conversation over festive centerpieces.
Megan Strickland
Volunteers from Ronan Dodge cut and serve donated pies.
Megan Strickland
Sierra and Brander Symington giggle on the dance floor.
Megan Strickland
Diane Grant greets one of 300 dinner guests.
Megan Strickland
James Pettit and Geno Harper inspire folks to dance.
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
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RONAN — Residents took the second half of the word “Thanksgiving” to heart last week, and showered each other with generosity in the Ronan Chamber of Commerce’s Community Thanksgiving Dinner.
The event has become a tradition in the town, after former Ronan Café owner Marie Cowen started cooking for people almost two decades ago. When Cowen moved along, the Ronan Chamber of Commerce took responsibility for making sure the gathering survived. This year Brandy Chisholm was at the helm for the first time, after longtime boss Cheri Houle stepped down.
Volunteer Roland Godan sang praises of Chisholm’s leadership.
“She’s done an awesome job at coordinating it,” Godan said, noting that the entire Chisholm family spent most of Wednesday night prepping the Community Center and arrived at 4 a.m. the day of the feast to get things done.
Chisholm directed a fleet of kindhearted volunteers who performed different tasks to make the act of feeding between 250 and 400 attendees run smoothly. Volunteer Skip Evans was put to work handing out coffees, Ed Cornelius spent a third year washing dishes, and Ronan Dodge employees took a turn cutting up pies and other tasty treats that were brought in by volunteers.
“We should thank all the dozens of people who donated,” Godan said. “There are dozens of pies that people brought. We didn’t have to bake a thing.”
Godan got creative with his volunteering gig. After finding the potato mashers tackling a 170-pound mountain with handheld tools, Godan retrieved a piece of food processing equipment not necessarily meant for potatoes and tried it. It cut the processing time down to two hours.
The end result of the volunteers’ efforts was an atmosphere of happy togetherness.
“The food is always so good,” Debbie Demarais said. “It is just a really family-style thing that is nice when you are like me and don’t have family in the area.”
Fate sent Demarais a holiday taste of the family she was missing by placing her next to a stranger who was from a town next door to her native Malta, Montana.
“It’s kind of neat we ended up sitting next to each other,” Demarais said.
Guitarist Allen Matt shared a story of thankfulness with the crowd. Matt said he was once able to play the guitar, but his hand was damaged and he couldn’t play anymore.
“Instead of giving up music, I picked up the ukulele,” Matt said.
He told the crowd he was grateful he had found an instrument to use as an outlet as he strummed a tune.
Much of the day was set to the live croonings of James Pettit and Geno Harper who belted out song after song that drew people to their feet. Young children Brander Symington and Sissy Symington twisted and twirled to the beats, as did adults Betty Carter and Eugene Felsman.
“We just love dancing,” Carter said.
Seven-year-old Claudia Parker of Ronan summed up the day in a few succinct words as she grinned over a plateful of grub.
“The food is good,” Parker said. “It is fun.”
