{"id":15482,"date":"2025-11-27T16:50:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-volunteers-serve-thanksgiving-meal-with-60-turkeys\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:48:09","slug":"cortez-volunteers-serve-thanksgiving-meal-with-60-turkeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-volunteers-serve-thanksgiving-meal-with-60-turkeys\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez volunteers serve Thanksgiving meal with 60 turkeys"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Volunteers
Volunteers fill trays with stuffing, potatoes and gravy during the community Thanksgiving meal at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. The event is organized by Grace\u2019s Kitchen, Mona Makes and more than 75 local volunteers. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Well before people arrived at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church on Thanksgiving morning, preparations for Cortez\u2019s annual meal were well underway.<\/p>\n

When the noon service began Thursday, volunteers had formed an assembly line. They packed turkey, potatoes and cranberry sauce and tucked individually boxed, labeled slices of pie inside. In the kitchen, cooks spooned servings from steaming pots while dish runners and delivery drivers kept stations moving.<\/p>\n

The organized operation is a partnership between Grace\u2019s Kitchen at St. Barnabas, Mona Makes and a wider community network that donates money and time to make the holiday meal happen \u2013 expected to serve up to 900 people.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s effort comes amid growing demand. By 1 p.m., volunteers had served more than 300 meals.<\/p>\n

For Victoria Atkins, who manages the meal, the day started at 7 a.m. with giant pots of boiling water for mashed potatoes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh gosh, prep starts months from before now. We started collecting turkeys in mid-October and stash them in our freezers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Volunteers
Volunteers pack Thanksgiving meals Thursday at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. More than 75 helpers filled trays with turkey, potatoes, cranberry sauce and donated pie for the community meal. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

She added part of it is figuring out how much food: \u201cWe also started estimating how many meals we thought we might need today. We know our numbers at Grace\u2019s Kitchen overall have increased. Back in July, they started going up toward 150, 170 just for lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s team roasted more than 60 turkeys, yielding more than 300 pounds of deboned meat, all thawed and cooked in stages starting late October through the Sunday before Thanksgiving. As the main man carving the turkey put it: \u201cEverybody has to have a hobby!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really about community and although it\u2019s hosted here at St. Barnabas, you\u2019re looking at 75 volunteers or more that make this happen,\u201d Atkins said.<\/p>\n

She said the cooking efforts are a remarkable feat by the extended Snyder family and their business, Mona Makes in Cortez, which serves as head cook and handles meal prep.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria
Victoria Atkins, who manages the annual Thanksgiving meal, bags containers as volunteers work behind her Thursday at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. Prep begins months ahead, and Atkins said all turkeys are donated by community members, many from the church. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s truly not just to serve the community, it\u2019s the community that comes together to make it happen,\u201d said Chris Snyder, who has led in the kitchen alongside his sister since 2017.<\/p>\n

The work includes side dishes such as green beans with onion and bacon and stuffing with sausage, apples, onions, celery and cranberries, and homemade cranberry sauce. Mona Makes also purchases supplemental ingredients to help \u201cdoll it up a little bit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s menu also included more than 100 donated pies: apple, cherry, pumpkin, pecan, peach, mixed berry and others.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome are homemade and quite delectable,\u201d Atkins said. \u201cBut every pie is appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside the church, boxes and boxes were lined up in neat, methodical stacks, while volunteers seemed to move all around: line cooks boxed food trays, others bagged items, drivers left with big boxes in their arms.<\/p>\n

\"Volunteer
Volunteer Jim Mischke, a longtime supporter of Grace\u2019s Kitchen, helps pack meals Thursday at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. Mischke often hauls City Market donations in his pickup, saying, \u201cThere\u2019s a whole crew here that knows exactly what to do.\u201d (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Jim Mischke, a Vietnam veteran and retired Shiprock professor, has been a longtime supporter of Grace\u2019s Kitchen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing this for a long, long time. It\u2019s important to us. I\u2019m concerned about what\u2019s going on in terms of people being hungry, other Americans being hungry,\u201d Mischke said.<\/p>\n

Mischke and his wife have donated turkeys, pies and plenty of effort trucking loads of City Market donations for years. For him, the work is a blend of faith and responsibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink globally and act locally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Volunteers carry on over 25-year tradition<\/div>\n

Atkins said Grace\u2019s Kitchen, St. Barnabas\u2019 hot lunch program, began seeing demand spike in July, prior to SNAP benefits being paused and then restored.<\/p>\n

Lunch counts rose 60% to 80%, she said. This fall, the highest day tallied 187 meals. With that trend in mind, volunteers planned for more this year. Grace\u2019s Kitchen serves food every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and Hope\u2019s Kitchen, through Cortez First United Methodist Church, serves meals Monday, Wednesday and Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a daunting increase, but we\u2019re up for the challenge,\u201d Atkins said.<\/p>\n

The meal service includes delivery to first responders \u2013 both the Cortez Police Department and Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office \u2013 and to the 100 people who call ahead, some homebound or lacking transportation, including residents from Dove Creek, Dolores, Mancos and Towaoc.<\/p>\n

\"Freshly
Freshly packed trays of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and green beans move down the volunteer line Thursday before being bagged for pickup or delivery. By 1 p.m., more than 300 meals had been served. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe started this whole operation, gosh, 25 plus years ago, because some members of St. Barnabas learned that Meals on Wheels didn\u2019t deliver on Thanksgiving. So they said, \u2018Well, let\u2019s deliver something,\u2019\u201d Atkins said.<\/p>\n

For some residents, the pickup meal has become a tradition. One guest grabbing a to-go box said they come every year.<\/p>\n

Two longtime pillars of the program died in recent months:<\/p>\n

\u201cMike Hart did the mash potatoes with the kitchen. But Mike passed away in August,\u201d she said. \u201cSally Tompkins was a founder of Grace\u2019s Kitchen back in the late 90s, and she passed away in June. So, we\u2019re thinking of them today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Mona and Chris Snyder spearhead Thanksgiving Day cooking, Chris Snyder commended year-round volunteers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand in awe of those who work here to feed those daily that are in need of it, both here at Grace\u2019s and at Hope\u2019s Kitchen across town,\u201d he said. \u201cFood is our love language. It\u2019s the way we communicate and express that you\u2019re of value.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanksgiving meal is expected to reach 900 people<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[364,849,438,439,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-community","tag-community-connections","tag-food","tag-food-drink","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19680,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482\/revisions\/19680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15482"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}