The fourth annual community Thanksgiving dinner in the Queen of Angels gym drew a record crowd Thursday for what has quickly become the largest free holiday feast on the North Olympic Peninsula.
“It was wonderful,” said Reath Ellefson, feast organizer.
“We served between 500 and 600 people today.”
Queen of Angels, a Port Angeles Catholic church, provides the space for the free community meal and celebration that Ellefson initiated in 2008 after she was told that the cancer she had battled for some 15 years had returned.
She thought then that it might be her last Thanksgiving and wanted to make it special.
Four years later, she’s grateful she has been able to continue to do it.
“I’m hanging in,” she said. “It has been a rough year for me this year.”
The Port Angeles woman, now 54, is battling both ovarian cancer and a brain tumor. She also had pneumonia this week.
“I’m so thankful I could do this,” she said. “I just take one day at a time.”
She and volunteers decorate the gym, make and serve the food, and provide entertainment and other features.
Meals were served on festively adorned tables with sparkling silverware.
Attendees of this year’s feast consumed 18 turkeys, 10 hams, about 150 pounds of mashed potatoes and copious amounts of stuffing, gravy, vegetables, bread and desserts.
“There was hardly anything left,” Ellefson said.
Clothing distribution
In addition to the annual holiday gift raffle, this year’s community dinner featured the distribution of coats, hats, gloves and scarfs.
“It was a big success,” Ellefson said.
“I’m happy we were able to provide those for people who needed them.”
The inaugural Queen of Angels community Thanksgiving dinner drew about 160 in 2008. That number climbed to 250 in 2009 to about 300 last year.
“I can’t tell you what it means to me to see all the faces of the people who come,” Ellefson said Friday.
“Nobody left there hungry or wanting for anything yesterday.”
Chimacum meal
In Chimacum, 306 meals were served at the Tri-Area Community Center in the annual Thanksgiving feast sponsored by the St. Vincent de Paul Society of St. Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church and Olympic Community Action Programs.
“It started slow, but it picked up after that,” said volunteer Hugh Murphy, who helped carve turkeys and hams.
Elsewhere on the Peninsula, Hardy’s Market employee Maggie Parks said this year’s free Thanksgiving meal in Sequim drew an estimated 150.
“It was a great turnout,” Parks said. “The whole place was packed.”
About 100 meals were served at Hardy’s Market last Thanksgiving, Parks said.
Hardy’s puts on the free Thanksgiving feast to thank customers for their support.
Turnout for the Serenity House of Clallam County community Thanksgiving dinner at the Single Adult Shelter was not available, a Serenity House employee said.
Other free meals were served in Forks and Brinnon.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
