{"id":24292,"date":"2024-12-23T13:36:36","date_gmt":"2024-12-23T20:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-community-christmas-dinner-organizers-ready-to-provide-meal-for-community\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:51:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:51:16","slug":"cortez-community-christmas-dinner-organizers-ready-to-provide-meal-for-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-community-christmas-dinner-organizers-ready-to-provide-meal-for-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Community Christmas Dinner organizers ready to provide meal for community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"People
People gather around the 2015 Community Christmas Dinner in Cortez. This year, the sit-down meal was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

For the past 32 years, the Cortez Community Christmas Dinner has provided community members with a hot, home-cooked meal on Christmas Day, and this year will be no different.<\/p>\n

Organizers estimate that 500 people are provided a meal, candy cane and \u201cconnection around the table\u201d every year at the Montezuma County Annex, 107 N. Chestnut St. in Cortez.<\/p>\n

The dinner operates from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 107 N. Chestnut St.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one is left out or forgotten and left hungry,\u201d organizers say.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Essery, who serves on the Community Christmas Dinner committee, noted that the main food for this year\u2019s Christmas meal is ham, along with all the traditional sides.<\/p>\n

The cost of the meal is covered by Hope\u2019s Kitchen and leftover donations from previous years. Registration is not required to attend the meal, but those who wish to have a meal delivered to their home are asked to contact the team in charge of the Christmas meal to make arrangements before Christmas Day.<\/p>\n

Essery said her first two years of involvement were through volunteering, but now she serves on the dinner committee. And to Essery, this is more than just a Christmas meal. She shared that she lives 1,000 miles from home and being part of the meal ensures she isn\u2019t alone on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n

Essery added that seeing the community come together is one of the most special parts of the meal.<\/p>\n

Anyone who can\u2019t volunteer, but who wants to give back to a good cause are welcome to donate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking for businesses and individuals who wish to join in supporting this event. All donations are gratefully welcomed and go directly toward providing the meal,\u201d organizers said.<\/p>\n

Those who wish to donate can be sent to Onward! A Legacy Foundation at P.O. Box 26 in Cortez. All checks should include \u201cChristmas Dinner\u201d in the memo line.<\/p>\n

Online donations can be made by visiting<\/a> www.onwardfdn.fcsuite.com.<\/p>\n

Volunteer opportunities are available on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Contact Sheila Pendleton at sapen@outlook.com<\/a> or (307) 705-6562.<\/p>\n

Additional information is available from Pastor Kim Schultz, meal coordinator, at (970) 403-5646.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

also available to homebound individuals upon request <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24292","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=24292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78472,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24292\/revisions\/78472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24292"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}