{"id":43570,"date":"2021-11-26T00:12:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-26T07:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/community-enjoys-free-thanksgiving-feast-in-cortez\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:14:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:14:30","slug":"community-enjoys-free-thanksgiving-feast-in-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/community-enjoys-free-thanksgiving-feast-in-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"Community enjoys free Thanksgiving feast in Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cooks
Cooks fill up to-go platters at the Cortez Thanksgiving dinner Thursday. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

More than 300 free meals were handed out during the annual Thanksgiving dinner Thursday in Cortez.<\/p>\n

Turkey and all the fixings were prepared in commercial kitchens at the St. Barnabas Episcopal Church and Mona Makes, a local caterer.<\/p>\n

To serve the masses, cooks prepared 27 turkeys, 13 gallons of gravy, 59 pies, 200 pounds of potatoes, 400 homemade rolls, plus multiple pots of stuffing, cranberry sauce and green beans. New to the menu this year was a sweet potato crisp.<\/p>\n

\"Aaron
Aaron Cato volunteered at the community Thanksgiving dinner. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Julie
Julie Bradeck compliments cook Chris Snyder at the Cortez Thanksgiving dinner Thursday. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span>Jim Mimiaga<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\"Tiffany
Tiffany and Delleena Myers take home Thanksgiving meals, along with another patron. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"About
About 350 Thanksgiving meals were handed out Thursday at the St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Cortez. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span>Jim Mimiaga<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Layton
Layton Rogers, of Durango, enjoyed a Thanksgiving picnic in Cortez Thursday. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span>Jim Mimiaga<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mona
Mona Makes Catering prepares stuffing for the Cortez Thanksgiving dinner Thursday. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Dozens of volunteers worked an assembly line during the event. Containers were filled with food, then packaged for an orderly pickup station outside in the plaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall we had 50 volunteers, we could not have done this without them,\u201d said organizer Victoria Atkins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to volunteer because it gives the day more purpose and meaning,\u201d said Raleigh Cato, who helped out along with members of her family. \u201cThis community is very welcoming.\u201d<\/p>\n

People where thankful when picking up meals. They took them home, or sat at nearby picnic tables at the church and Cortez Cultural Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic, especially nice for guys like me who are not very good cooks. I\u2019ve never tried cooking a turkey,\u201d said Eric Bergman of Dove Creek.<\/p>\n

Two local soup kitchens \u2014 Grace\u2019s and Hopes \u2014 team up for the community dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all done by donations, multiple teams working for weeks,\u201d Atkins said. \u201cIt shows that even in the middle of a pandemic, we can still come together as a community and do something positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crisp was so good, the turkey was moist, and the mashed potatoes had great flavor,\u201d said Julie Bradeck ,who drove over from Mancos and returned after her meal to compliment the cooks.<\/p>\n

Meals were packaged to-go for pickup at the church or were delivered. The pandemic prevented the usual sit-down dinner in the banquet hall. About 40 meals were delivered by a team of seven drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe to-go operation is going much smoother this year. Last year, was the first time we did it that way, and we learned from it,\u201d said cook Chris Snyder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

50 volunteers organize to serve annual meal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,438,28,29,445,598],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-food","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-public-holiday"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43570","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=43570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85753,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43570\/revisions\/85753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43570"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}