{"id":36627,"date":"2022-12-26T16:39:50","date_gmt":"2022-12-26T23:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/annual-cortez-christmas-dinner-brings-cheer-to-community\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:32:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:32:41","slug":"annual-cortez-christmas-dinner-brings-cheer-to-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/annual-cortez-christmas-dinner-brings-cheer-to-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Annual Cortez Christmas dinner brings cheer to community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cooks
Cooks serve up a traditional holiday meal for the Cortez Community Christmas dinner. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

On Christmas Day in Cortez, hundreds of cars and trucks lined up for free holiday meals and presents at the Montezuma County annex.<\/p>\n

By 11:50 a.m., 271 meals has been served, including 85 deliveries, said organizer Jean Schwien.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s in a cheerful mood, we\u2019ve been very busy,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s been crazy but fun. To see everyone come together restores your faith in people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 32nd annual Community Christmas Dinner was on track to serve over 400 meals Sunday, a record. In 2021, they served 250 meals.<\/p>\n

\"Families
Families from all over lined up for a free to-go meal at the Community Christmas Dinner Sunday in Cortez. Enough food was cooked to serve over 400 people. From left are Traylena King, Chiquita King, and Whisper King with cat Tiger, all of Towaoc. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Volunteers
Volunteers got into the spirit of the Cortez Community Christmas dinner. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hundreds
Hundreds of people arrived for free to-go holiday meals served up at the Montezuma County Annex Christmas Day. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Gifts
Gifts were handed out to everyone who showed up at the Cortez Community Christmas Dinner. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Cooks
Cooks kept up with demand during the 32nd annual Community Christmas Dinner in Cortez Sunday. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The community event is put on with collaboration with Hope\u2019s Kitchen of the Methodist Church, the good Samaritan Center, Cortez Salvation Army and others.<\/p>\n

Everyone getting a meal received a gift of warm clothing from the Salvation Army.<\/p>\n

On the menu was smoked ham, mashed sweet potatoes, potato wedges, salad, rolls, green beans, cranberry sauce and pie.<\/p>\n

The salad and potatoes are sourced locally from Southwest Farm Fresh. The rolls are made by The Farm Bistro, and pies are being provided by the Salvation Army and Dunton Hot Springs.<\/p>\n

Fifty volunteers showed up for the effort that took weeks of planning. There were more volunteers than needed, and they were put on the list to help out the good Samaritan Center, who is in need of more help.<\/p>\n

The division of volunteer labor was efficient. Orders were taken by one group from the line of cars and walk ups. Drinks and presents were handed out by another volunteer team.<\/p>\n

Orders were relayed to kitchen workers, who handed back stacks of meals to runners dressed in Christmas costumes that brought them to the cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a good system, it gets smoother every year,\u201d said Schwien, the pastor for the Methodist Church. \u201cWe had very generous donations this year and want to let people know how grateful we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

A volunteer said community meals bring people back into a more compassionate mind set.<\/p>\n

\u201cA man said he has been getting too cynical and this helped him snap out of it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Hope\u2019s Kitchen Chef Pat Downey said cooking has been going on the past four days. On Christmas morning, everything was heated up and served up in to-go containers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re serving up good will,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tammy Wilson, of Cortez, is proud of the Cortez tradition serving free meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it, these type of things bring our community together,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of to-go meals served; presents also handed out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-36627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36627","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=36627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83406,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36627\/revisions\/83406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36627"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=36627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}