Volunteers share holiday with town
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ST. IGNATIUS – A warm kitchen filled with the aroma of a cooking Thanksgiving dinner brought community members together on Thanksgiving Day.
“I take any opportunity to serve others, especially on a day like today when someone doesn’t have a family or they are tight for cash,” Pastor Jason Jury said.
The Christian Missionary Alliance Church, next to the water tower, hosted the event, which is the church Pastor Jury runs. S&K Technologies donated $200 for supplies. Many people also donated items.
Volunteers woke up early to start putting a meal together that included four turkeys, two hams, and 80 pounds of potatoes.
Pastor Jury said cooking is his hobby so he enjoys chopping a few onions and a filling a bowl full of chopped celery to mix up in the stuffing.
“This was placed on our hearts to provide meals for people and we enjoy helping,” said Cathy Jury, volunteer. The volunteers used the kitchen at the St. Ignatius school and served up the food in the commons.
“It was awesome that the school let us do this here,” Pastor Jury said.
Last year, the community dinner was also held at the school. Kimimi Ashley posted the event for the first year on Facebook to see if anyone was interested, and it turns out that there is a need for such a dinner in the community.
“This year, the church is taking it on,” she said.
She woke up at 5 a.m. to put the turkeys in the oven to make sure the dinner was ready on time.
"I'm glad to see people come together for this,” Ashley said.
Michelle Jury, 12, peeled potatoes with the sounds of “Holy Spirit Funk” playing in the background, which is a parody of “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars.
“For me, it’s fun to do this,” she said of volunteering. “I don’t know why. I just have a lot of fun helping people.”
Pastor Jury and his family live in Arlee and ran the Arlee Alliance Church where the food pantry was located. He said, unfortunately, the church was closed due to low enrollment, and the food pantry was moved back to the Jocko Valley Lutheran Church.
“It’s difficult to keep small churches together,” he said adding that people often commute to larger churches with more people, but he plans to work with the St. Ignatius community for as long as needed, and he hopes to do the community Thanksgiving meal again next year, maybe even a monthly dinner in the future. “
I feel blessed to be able to do this and I’d like to do more,” he said.
