Volunteers needed for free Thanksgiving dinner
KEARNEY — If it's November, it's time for volunteers to sign up to help put on the 39th annual Kearney Area Concerned Citizens free Thanksgiving Day dinner.
Needed are 150 volunteers of all ages, from children to great-grandparents.
The dinner will be offered from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Nov. 28 at the Old Town Hall at 1900 Central Ave.
The public is invited to enjoy turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green beans, rolls and corn, and beverages, along with a scrumptious wealth of pies, cakes, brownies and cookies, all at no cost.
A turkey day tradition since 1984, it's put on by the Kearney Area Concerned Citizens, a volunteer organization. Last year, nearly 1,500 dinners were served.
Volunteers come to the Old Town Hall the day before Thanksgiving to set up the hall and peel 400 pounds of potatoes. More volunteers arrive at 3 a.m. Thanksgiving Day to begin roasting the turkeys on cookers outside.
Some volunteers return year after year, like Tina Hart and her daughter Jessica. They are Minden natives who live in Boston but drive 1,600 miles back to Kearney to help every year.
Other volunteers include students at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, or Kearney newcomers. Local families, three generations strong, show up, too, along with people whose families celebrate the weekend before Thanksgiving and have nothing else to do on Thanksgiving Day.
While the dinner is free, donations keep the event going. That money pays for the food, which, two years ago, included 42 turkeys, 260 pounds of ham, 400 pounds of potatoes, 400 pounds of sweet potatoes and 650 dinner rolls.
Dinners have been held every Thanksgiving since 1984 except for 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Take-out dinners only were served in 2021 and 2022. Sit-down dinners resumed last year.
Take-out dinners are still available, and up to eight dinners can be delivered to a single address at no charge. Volunteers will pick up people who have no way to get to Old Town Hall.
Volunteers are asked to sign up now, especially if they want to do a specific task. They can also show up at Old Town Hall Thanksgiving morning, but walk-ins will be randomly assigned to whatever needs to be done, dinner committee member BamBe Currie said.
"Serving the food is the most popular job, but if people stop in, we'll find them a job," she said.
Volunteers are asked to stay for at least an hour, but "sometimes people are having so much fun they don't want to go home after an hour, so if they want to stay longer, that's fine," Currie added.
The public is invited to drop off desserts between 8:30 a.m. and early evening on Nov. 27, or before 11 a.m. Thanksgiving Day.
Currie and her husband Marc have been helping at the dinner for 30 years. "We never know what the final bill will be. When push comes to shove, people on the committee make sure it's all covered," she said last year.
"It takes a lot of money, but I'm very grateful. This community has been wonderful," she added.
