BOONE COUNTY — Various locations throughout Mid-Missouri, including in Ashland and Columbia, served free Thanksgiving dinners to the community.
And according to Charles Stephenson, Powerhouse Community Development Corporation’s CEO and founder, these events are not just for people in need.
“You’ve got people that are homeless, but you also got people that are maybe wealthy but lost loved ones and just don’t want to be alone for today, you’ve got people who may not just want to cook,” Stephenson said. “So it doesn’t matter, everybody got different reason for coming but they’re here.”
“I live by myself so I thought this would be good to get a meal and I did see some people I knew” said Don Jourdan, a Columbia resident. “So being around gathering rather than eating by yourself.”
Bringing the holiday spirit of sharing and spending time together.
“Even though we’re all from different families, we’re really in a family environment today” Stephenson said. “It’s just amazing to see people from all different walks of life sitting together and not judging one another, but just celebrating.”
It is also an opportunity to meet new people and have new encounters.
“People that know each other get together, and people that don’t know each other get to know each other” Jourdan said.
Powerhouse hosted its event at the Progressive Missionary Baptist Church in Columbia. This was the city’s 27th annual sit-in community Thanksgiving dinner.
The organization had distributed between 850 and 900 meals to essential workers and elderly the morning of Thanksgiving, and they expected hundreds of people to attend the dinner.
In Ashland, the free Thanksgiving dinner served as a fundraiser for the veterans organization “Welcome Home,” and was hosted at Southern Boone Middle School. Donations were accepted and all proceeds are give to Welcome Home.
Brenda Ravenscraft is the former owner of Skyline Cafe and has been organizing the event for 13 years. She said veterans need to be thanked for their service.
“Being the day of thanks, who do we need to thank more? A veteran,” Ravenscraft said. “That’s why I picked the veterans, on Thanksgiving.”
But it is also a personal matter for her.
“Veterans are very near and dear to my heart” Ravenscraft said. “There’s many veterans in my family, many veterans — my husband was a veteran, all my brothers in-law were veterans, I have cousins that are veterans, I have nephews that are veterans, many of my friends are veterans… you get my age, there’s a lot of veterans in your family.”
Larry Thilmony, an Ashland resident and Vietnam veteran, attended the dinner and came with guests.
“I brought my pastor, he wanted to come and eat, so I brought him to have dinner. He’s 98 years old so he can’t drive too good,” Thilmony said with a laugh.
For this free Thanksgiving dinner and fundraiser, community support was needed.
“We have a high school student that made all the pumping pies” Ravenscraft said. “It’s not just me doing it, believe me, this community is a very giving community.”
And according to Ravenscraft, “it’s a giving community, very giving community.”
Ashland’s free Thanksgiving dinner usually attracts a couple hundred people and raises between $3,000 and $5,000 for Welcome Home, depending on the year.
Both Columbia’s and Ashland’s dinners were homemade by volunteers and organizations, and included traditional Thanksgiving sides such as turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, stuffing, mac and cheese, cornbread, and pumpkin pie.