There is a labour of love taking place inside the kitchen and gym of the Namao Elementary School as volunteers prepare for the 100th sitting of the community turkey dinner.
About 500 guests and 100 volunteers will feast on the dinner Saturday night. The event has been months in the making and involves a plethora of food.
Volunteers cooked 16 turkeys and 26 turkey thighs, roughly 350 pounds of meat, they are making 200 pounds of potatoes along with 100 pounds of carrots and will use close to 500 cups of bread crumbs for stuffing.
Kitchen co-ordinator Maureen LeClair-Powley has volunteered at the dinner for 50 years. While she no longer lives in Namao, she comes back every year to pay respect to her roots.
“My mother’s father and his father settled here in the late 1800s. It’s a homage to them, if you will,” she said. “Besides, it’s just an amazing community time.”
“Unfortunately, most of the time I see these people are unhappy events. This is just a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with my community.”
Many of the volunteers have logged hours in the kitchen over the years.
Lloyd Sichkaryk grew up in Namao and is a frequent volunteer. He calls the 100th dinner an accomplishment.
Neil Coburn has helped out at the last 20 turkey dinners and can remember attending them as a child.
As the dinner celebrates its centennial, he said it is something for the community to be proud of.
“It’s quite amazing really. It just shows the good community spirit that’s here. There’s still lots of people willing to volunteer and contribute,” he said.
One of the oldest volunteers is 90-year-old Hugh Crozier, who said he has spent more or less his entire life helping out and attending the turkey dinner. He spent much of Saturday afternoon tending to the stuffing.
“I see all of my friends and it’s a fun time to get together and do this,” he said.
“It’s just something that has become such a tradition.”
But there is uncertainty about whether the annual event will keep running.
LeClair-Powley said there have been talks about how the dinner will continue in the years to come.
While there are children and teenagers who help as servers, many of the volunteers in the kitchen are seniors and there is talk about who will carry the torch as the community gets older.
“We’re talking about that now,” LeClair-Powley said. “The organizing group is asking, ‘What does the future look like now that we’ve reached 100? What does 101 look like?'”
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