Manna soup kitchen and a number of Durango-area restaurants are opening their doors on Thanksgiving for people who want to avoid their home kitchens but are still looking to have a hearty meal.
Shawn Haught, Manna’s kitchen manager, said Manna is offering free meals from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday and have been working for weeks to prepare turkey and chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, sausage stuffing and garden salad. For sides, Manna will offer pumpkin pie, apple pie, pecan pie and apple and pear pie.
Haught said enough food has been prepared to serve about 1,000 meals. Last year, Manna served about 680 free meals.
The food resource center will also work with the Vineyard Church in Durango to deliver meals to workers on shift and to residents who are unable to leave their homes on Thursday, he said.
“We are hitting gas stations and other businesses to see if people wanted meals, even though they’ll be working. So, we do have a bunch of delivery drivers that will be delivering meals out to residences and businesses,” he said.
Manna executive director Ann Morse said this will be Manna’s third Durango Community Thanksgiving Dinner after it lent a helping hand during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to a group of volunteers, who for decades hosted the holiday dinner at the La Plata County Fairgrounds.
“The board at the Durango Community Thanksgiving Dinner reached out to Manna to help facilitate the dinner due to the additional safety and health protocols. And we accepted. And so we’ve been doing it ever since,” she said.
Manna traditionally hosts Christmas dinners, so Thanksgiving is a recent addition to its wheelhouse.
“Coming from a food security organization, feeding people during the holidays especially is just so important,” she said. “We don’t want anybody to go hungry any day of the year. But especially on these special days, providing people with food is just so important, we feel. Everybody knows how expensive it is to go out and purchase turkeys and fixings. It’s unaffordable for people trying to make ends meet.”
This year, Manna will have a heated outdoor pavilion for people to enjoy their meals and their neighbors’ company.
“In the future, we really would love to see that social connectedness grow and have that special piece that’s lacking of having that great community meal where people can sit down together as well,” she said.
A number of other restaurants in town will also be open for the holiday, Durango Business Improvement District executive director Tim Walsworth said. However, he cautioned that families should call businesses ahead of time to confirm reservations and availability.
Businesses open on Thanksgiving include:
If eating out isn’t one’s style, but holiday shopping still needs to be done, the following grocery stores will be open on Thursday:
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