Giving thanks

Come Thanksgiving Day next week, Tim Dunn and several hundred volunteers will be busy serving turkey dinners to thousands of St. Tammany Parish residents and delivering another 1,000 dinners to the elderly and shut-ins.

Dunn has been doing this for 12 years, coordinating the many details of giving out free Thanksgiving dinners, and he enjoys every minute of it.

“I find it very rewarding, and it makes me feel real good,” said Dunn, a retired military man.

A member of the Aldersgate United Methodist Church on Robert Boulevard in Slidell, Dunn took over the management of the annual Community Thanksgiving Day Celebration Dinner in 1996. He said before that, the dinner was handled by the Aldersgate Men’s Club, but after working with them, he thought he could do a better job, and 12 years later, it really shows.

Supported totally by donations of food and money, the annual dinner serves Thanksgiving dinner to anyone who lives in the parish.

“We don’t turn anyone away,” Dunn said.

Besides serving dinner at the John Wesley Center at Aldersgate, dinners are also served at the First United Methodist Church, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, the Mt. Olive A.M.E. Church all in Slidell, and the Lutheran Village Church in Lacombe.

On top of the sit-down dinners, Dunn and his army of volunteers also provide delivery service to shut-ins and the elderly all over the parish.

“We go to Covington, Mandeville, Madisonville. The farthest place we have delivered is Bush,” Dunn said.

Last year, 3,300 sit-down dinners were served, and over 1,300 dinners were delivered to homes.

Starting at 6 a.m. Nov. 27, volunteers will start cooking, and by 11 a.m. thousands of dinners of turkey, stuffing, yams, vegetables, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls and dessert will be ready. Dunn won’t stop until 2 p.m. During the dinner, Dunn is usually walking around the dining room, talking to people and making sure everybody has enough to eat.

Dunn is humble about his efforts. He lauds the more than 400 volunteers who show up to cook, serve, deliver and clean up. He said most of the volunteers are young. He said high school students have told him it was the most rewarding experience of their young lives.

“I had one volunteer girl who started at 7 years old and came every year until she was 17, and her family moved out of the parish,” he said.

Dunn said he can always use volunteers.

“I never turn away volunteers,” he said.

This year, Dunn said he is getting volunteers from around the parish and even as far away as Michigan.

The celebration has been a huge success every year, but Dunn thinks this year’s attendance will be even bigger because of the current state of the economy.

“I expect a lot of people this year. There’s been a lot of layoffs and hard times,” Dunn said.

He added that he has already gotten “hundreds” of telephone calls asking for details about the dinner.

Dunn gives credit to the local community for the success of the dinner. He said people are very generous with gifts of food and money. He estimates this year’s dinner will cost $7,000.

“We don’t have problem with the small donations, but we would like to get some more corporate sponsors,” Dunn said.

So far, Wal-Mart and Shell Oil have donated money to the dinner, but Dunn said they need more because the attendance grows every year.

For more information and to volunteer, or to give an address for delivery of a Thanksgiving dinner, call Aldersgate at 641-5829 or the Lacombe site at 882-5727.