{"id":37111,"date":"2022-11-24T20:12:43","date_gmt":"2022-11-25T03:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/thanksgiving-meals-served-to-go-at-cortez-community-dinner\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:35:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:35:34","slug":"thanksgiving-meals-served-to-go-at-cortez-community-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/thanksgiving-meals-served-to-go-at-cortez-community-dinner\/","title":{"rendered":"Thanksgiving meals served to-go at Cortez community dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Snyder family prepares the community Thanksgiving meal Thursday at Grace's Kitchen in St. Barnabas of the Valley Episcopal Church. Hundreds arrived for to-go meals with all the classic dishes. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Hundreds of Thanksgiving meals were served to-go Thursday at St. Barnabas of the Valley Episcopal Church in Cortez.<\/p>\n

More than 30 turkeys were roasted, deboned and carved for the community meal. Cooks whipped up 50 gallons of dressing and 17 gallons of gravy and mashed 250 pounds of potatoes. Homemade pies were sliced and served in hundreds of individual containers.<\/p>\n

Members of the Snyder family were the lead cooks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe operation gets more streamlined every year,\u201d said Chris Snyder. \u201cThe dishes are favorite family recipes made with quality ingredients.\u201d<\/p>\n

A classic is the flavorful dressing, a mixture of oven-roasted bread, pork sausage, apples, cranberries, celery, onions and spices. Another is the sweet potato crisp, a creamy treat with a brown-sugar crusted top layer that serves as a side and a dessert, said cook Mona Snyder.<\/p>\n

Organizer Victoria Atkins said the number of volunteers increased this year to 75, up from 50 last year.<\/p>\n

Heidi Mitchell volunteered for the first time at the event, and her first duty was filling containers of cranberry sauce.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to give back to the community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Volunteers
Volunteers arrive at St. Barnabas Episcopal church to help out with the community Thanksgiving meal. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Volunteers
Volunteers Heidi Mitchell and Victoria Atkins prepare for the Thanksgiving meal in Cortez on Thursday. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hundreds
Hundreds of pie slices are ready to go out the door for the community Thanksgiving meal in Cortez. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Balliger Family took their goats to the Turkey Trot at Parque de Vida Thanksgiving Day. The event is a fundraiser for For Pets' Sake. From left are Evelyn, Bob and Yvonne Balliger of Cortez. The goats are Poseidon, Gift and Ruthie. The family won the award for \u201cmost unusual pet\u201d at the event. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Atkins said 81 meals will be delivered to homebound residents in Cortez, Dolores and the county.<\/p>\n

For the first time, volunteers delivered meals to homeless people who might not have the means to get to the church. Paul and Shirley Gaal were driving to locations around Cortez to hand out hot Thanksgiving meals.<\/p>\n

The Thanksgiving community meal is a combined effort between Grace\u2019s Kitchen, Hope\u2019s Kitchen, the church and the community, said Pastor Doug Bleyle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is possible thanks to the community donating their time and effort \u2013 that\u2019s what makes it happen,\u201d he said. \u201cThe meal is served to a diversity of gathering of people, our neighbors from all over, all backgrounds and social groups. Everyone is welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

The to-go format continued this year because of the recent spike in coronavirus cases. Organizers said they will consider a hybrid system in the future to allow limited seating and to-go meals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deliveries made to homebound; volunteer effort increases<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37112,"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-37111","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\/37111","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=37111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83556,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37111\/revisions\/83556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37111"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}