SECTION HEADER
CELEBRATING THE HISTORY
OF EASTERN OREGON
13
NOVEMBER 17�24, 2021
Feeding a community
Community Fellowship Dinners to
serve takeout Thanksgiving meals
By Jennifer Colton
Go! Magazine
and eat with their friends or family.
Last year, with many commu-
nity members unable to travel,
the events served a record 2,300
meals between Thanksgiving and
Christmas — 500 more than they
had in the past. Humphreys said
they expect numbers to be down
a little this year, but they will pre-
pare extra meals — just in case.
“We want to serve as many
people as possible. We always
have plenty of food,” he said.
Volunteers are spending
most of this month preparing
about 1,200 individual dinners
with turkey, mashed potatoes,
vegetables, a roll and dessert.
The meals will be available for
pick up from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on
Thanksgiving Day at Hermiston
High School. No registration is
required, and anyone can drive
up and pick up a meal for each
person in their household.
Limited meal delivery is avail-
H
ERMISTON — Volunteers will
spend two weeks this month
cooking and carving 100 turkeys,
mashing thousands of potatoes,
and preparing enough vegeta-
bles, rolls and dessert to serve a
community on Thanksgiving.
For the second year in a row,
volunteers will not be able to sit
down with guests for a hot meal,
but they’ll still do what they can to
make sure anyone in the Hermis-
ton area who needs a Thanksgiv-
ing meal gets one through the
Community Fellowship Dinner.
With lingering uncertainty about
the COVID-19 pandemic, the
event board decided to repeat
the process of heat-and-serve
meals again this year.
“It’s hard because the fi rst two
words in our name are ‘commu-
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
John Lauck handed out Thanksgiving meals at the drive-thru Community Fellow-
ship Dinner in 2020. The event will again be a takeout dinner on Thursday, Nov. 25.
nity’ and ‘fellowship,’ and there
isn’t much fellowship going on
with this model,” Chairman Gary
Humphreys said. “We start plan-
ning in August and September,
and with rumors of shutdowns,
we had to make a decision, and
that was to repeat the process
from last year. We are still serving
the community.”
Hermiston’s Community Fel-
lowship Dinner began in 1982 to
give anyone in the community
— residents or those passing
through — a place to enjoy a meal
and be with others on holidays.
Before COVID-19, volunteers
served guests a hot meal and
could sit and talk with them, but
the program has shifted to take-
out meals the guests can warm up
able and must be scheduled be-
fore 7 p.m. on Nov. 24. To arrange
delivery, call 541-571-1337.
That’s also the number for
anyone interested in volunteer-
ing. Humphreys said they are
looking for volunteers to pitch in
before and during the event, and
donations are appreciated. The
nonprofi t operates on volunteers
and donations.
A Community Fellowship Din-
ner — also heat-and-serve — is
also planned for Christmas Day.
With 2022 being the 40th an-
niversary, Humphreys says they
plan on returning to the full com-
munity fellowship next year.
“Our goal is to have live
people in the building and having
a hot meal together next year,”
he said. “That’s what we want.”
More information is avail-
able on the Facebook page for
Community Fellowship Dinner –
Hermiston.
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