{"id":43671,"date":"2021-11-17T21:50:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T04:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/it-brings-back-blessings-ute-mountain-ute-tribe-hosts-thanksgiving-drive-thru\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:14:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:14:47","slug":"it-brings-back-blessings-ute-mountain-ute-tribe-hosts-thanksgiving-drive-thru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/it-brings-back-blessings-ute-mountain-ute-tribe-hosts-thanksgiving-drive-thru\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It brings back blessings\u2019: Ute Mountain Ute tribe hosts Thanksgiving drive-thru"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe hosted its annual Thanksgiving dinner, drive-thru style. Here, Querida A. Mark hands out meals outside the Ute Mountain Casino.<\/span>Kala Parkinson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Feelings of gratitude and cheer floated through Towoac Wednesday as the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe hosted a Thanksgiving dinner drive-thru at the Ute Mountain Casino.<\/p>\n

It was the second year the annual event was held as a drive-thru instead of an in-person gathering due to COVID-19. This year, an extra 100 meals were distributed, for a total of 2,000 to-go Thanksgiving feasts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt brings back blessings to all of us,\u201d said Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Chairman Manuel Heart.<\/p>\n

The event was all about giving back to tribal members \u2013 especially in the wake of hardships like the pandemic, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we take things for granted,\u201d Heart said. \u201cWe need to be thankful for everything we have in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meals were delivered to tribal elders who were unable to drive down to the casino, he said.<\/p>\n

\"From
From left: Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Chairman Manuel Heart and Tribe Royalty Pachun Collins and Leland Collins<\/span>Kala Parkinson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Inside
Inside the Ute Mountain Casino, assembly lines prepared and packaged 2,000 Thanksgiving meals.<\/span>Kala Parkinson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

About 80 people \u2013 casino personnel and otherwise \u2013 made the event possible, said Raynal Frank, casino banquets manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a great feeling and a beautiful day to do it,\u201d said casino general manager Richard Scheer.<\/p>\n

Up for grabs were 1,000 turkey dinners and 1,000 ham dinners, complemented with traditional mainstays like mashed potatoes, stuffing and corn.<\/p>\n

The food was preordered and paid for by the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and the casino helped to facilitate the event.<\/p>\n

Leland Collins and Pachun Collins, tribal royalty, were present to greet fellow tribal members.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring these hard times with COVID, it\u2019s good to have our community come together once in a while,\u201d Leland said.<\/p>\n

He said the event \u201cboosted morale\u201d amid the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to be here because I get to see everyone that I didn\u2019t get to see last year because of COVID,\u201c Pachun said.<\/p>\n

Cars lined up in two lanes, while inside the casino, assembly lines were fast at work preparing and packaging food.<\/p>\n

Querida A. Mark was one of many taking orders and running food from the casino to waiting cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cKindness goes a long way these days,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

To her, it was important \u201cjust giving back to the community and making everyone feel important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2,000 meals served to tribal families <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,167,561,29,144,1879,547],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-native-american","tag-newsletter","tag-towaoc","tag-ute-mountain-casino","tag-ute-mountain-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43671","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=43671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85788,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43671\/revisions\/85788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43671"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}