I must confess that convening a community Christmas dinner which provides 200-plus meals, and relies totally and completely on the generosity of volunteers, gave me a few sleepless nights last month!
After all, and it really is quite amazing, the annual community Christmas dinner depends on several kinds of contributions from volunteers.
This includes volunteers donating (and, in most cases, delivering to a central place) all the different kinds of food for the dinner, setting up at the church as much as possible the day before, peeling 140 pounds of potatoes and turnips, cooking several turkeys and hams beforehand, not to mention volunteers preparing and delivering “meals on wheels” on Christmas Day, and volunteers preparing and serving food at the dinner!
And let us not forget the volunteers who tackle the very large job of clean-up afterwards, where they wash, dry, and put away pots, pans, trays, and dishes (real plates, cups, saucers, and other dishes for 200 dinner settings)!
Also a concern this past year was whether anyone would come to the dinner! And again, like in Christmases past, we had at least 180-200 people attend.
Volunteers prepared and delivered 60 meals on wheels (up from 46 last year, perhaps because of the extraordinary ’flu season).
As you can see, I didn’t have to worry–our community and its wonderful, generous volunteers came through once again! Granted, some volunteers and food/monetary donations came at the last minute but now I have a history of what to expect for next year’s annual community Christmas dinner.
I plan to keep a copy of this article at my bedside next December!
In fact, I must remind myself, when that time comes round, this whole experience last year was so exhilarating that I could hardly wait until next year to do it again!
Following past years’ tradition, we have thanked a few organizations and companies separately in this edition of the Fort Frances Times, as well as the community at large.
But on behalf of the Fort Frances Volunteer Bureau, we would like to thank everyone who participated in making the 12th-annual community Christmas dinner a success, and look forward to experiencing the camaraderie with all of you again next year!
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Local News from Across the Rainy River District
