Community comes for dinner

By SARA SYVERSON

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- What started out as a simple gesture of neighborly kindness between neighbors 15 years ago has truly grown into an act of community-wide kindness.

About 15 years ago, Jim and Anita Thomas, of New Ulm had planned to have Thanksgiving together as a family but a snow storm kept many people who wanted to travel to see relatives and friends stranded in town. So the Thomas family invited their friends over to their home to celebrate Thanksgiving with them.

The following year the Thomas' focused on preparing a meal for the needy in the community.

"We realized after that first year that you could be the richest person in the world and still be alone on Thanksgiving," said Jim Thomas, "After that we opened it up to anyone in the community."

This is the 15th year that the Thomas family along with their church and community friends have put on a Thanksgiving meal for the entire community.

The meal was served by the Community Friends from 11:15 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Thursday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in New Ulm. There were over 60 people who volunteered help in preparation of the meal on Wednesday evening at St. Mary's Catholic Church. The next day, there were over 100 volunteers who helped out to serve over 700 people a Thanksgiving meal. This 700-plus figure also included meals taken out to people who could not come down to the church for dinner and also the meals served to the volunteers.

"We've grown every year since the first year," said Thomas, "For families this has really gotten to be 'their Thanksgiving' and they change their plans to be here."

Thomas said that people are bringing their families to New Ulm from other places to make it to the Thanksgiving meal at St. Mary's Church.

"It's a lot of fun," said volunteer Harry Fischer, of rural Sleepy Eye, "It's amazing how much we get done. It's well-organized -- we serve a lot of people in a short time. It gives people a place to go whether they have a place to go or not. I think this year is the best meal they've had so far."

Fischer said he came to the church the night before to help cut up the squash and prepare the turkey meat.

The meal served consisted of the traditional Thanksgiving fixings of turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, squash, coleslaw, dinner rolls, dessert cakes, and of course, pumpkin pie with a dollop of whipped cream.

Ellen Held, of New Ulm, decided to bring their family of five to the Thanksgiving meal at St. Mary's this year because she had heard about it at her place of work.

"Our family celebrated last Sunday, but this is our Thanksgiving meal,"said Held.

One volunteer who has helped out with this meal for three years now said she comes down to the church the evening before the meal and works for about an hour. The next day she goes to the ecumenical service and enjoys the meal.

"Helping with the work is always kind of fun," she said, "There's always a lot of people who help out with the meal."

Nancy Goering, of New Ulm, said she heard about the meal by word of mouth.

"My parents have come to it before and they had told me what it was like," said Goering.

Ben Saije brought his new wife Katie down from South Minneapolis to spend the holiday with family.

"I think it's great, it's just so 'New Ulm,'" said Saije, "It's neat because it brings the whole community together."