A behind the scenes look at the Community Thanksgiving Meal

The Community Thanksgiving Meal will be held at noon on Thursday in the Fellowship Hall of the Decorah United Methodist Church. There is no charge for the annual event and it is open to everyone.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to organize, prepare, and serve the community meal? To get a real behind the scenes look, we spoke with Community Thanksgiving Meal coordinator Thomas Hansen.  Hansen has been volunteering to help with the Community Meal for 20 years.  He noted that Jim and Barb Dale were instrumental in getting the community meal started about 27 years ago.  Currently, Hansen relies on help from Cathy Mitchell and Rhonda Perez, along with many dedicated volunteers.

Preparations for the Community Meal begin in October when organizers make requests for donations. By mid-November the donations are collected and the attention is turned to the food and site preparation.

The week of Thanksgiving gets busy with lots of groups coming together to help.  On Tuesday children from the United Methodist Church's After School Program work together to make and bake the pumpkin pies. Decorah Middle School students from Mrs. Nowack's 5th grade class also help by wrapping the silverware and decorating the tables for the Thanksgiving meal.

On Wednesday volunteers work to peel 100 pounds of donated potatoes and cook 16 turkeys.  Hansen says the potato peeling has become somewhat of an annual competition among the volunteers to see who can peel the most potatoes.  This year the turkeys will be cooked in the kitchen at Luther College and the Zeta Tau Psi fraternity and other community volunteers will spend Wednesday evening preparing the meat for the Thanksgiving day meal.

While most of Decorah is still sleeping at 3:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving day, Hansen starts boiling the potatoes, heating up the turkey and cutting up ham.  Another group of volunteers comes to help and spends their Thanksgiving morning mashing the potatoes.  Remember that's 100 pounds of potatoes -- and they mash them by hand.

By 10:30 a.m.the food is ready and a group of 10 to 15 volunteers begin packaging and delivering meals to those who have requested a meal delivery. Last year 180 meals were delivered to people across Winneshiek County.  The number of deliveries varies each year, depending on the weather.

Once the deliveries have been made, about 20 volunteers begin preparations for serving at the church meal site. These volunteers help with everything from set up to clean up and everything in between.

The Community Thanksgiving Meal has grown in numbers every year.  This year Hansen expects to serve meals to about 400 people and to enlist the help of about 50 volunteers.

Hansen says it's very uplifting to see people of all ages, backgrounds, cultures, and walks of life coming together to share a meal together.