NO WAY HEADLINES of The Day
Lincoln, California is having a turkey dinner for people who’ve lost everything in the wildfires.
Some good news!
When residents of Paradise, California had to evacuate from the wildfires, many fled to Lincoln, about an hour and a half away and hundreds are staying in hotels in the area. So the Lincoln community is coming together to help these folks who’ve lost everything have a happy Thanksgiving and they’re serving up turkey dinners and providing rides to anyone who wants to come.
It started with Jeannette Bermudez reaching out to a friend about cooking some turkeys and delivering them to evacuees staying in hotels nearby and then more and more people wanted to help, so they started a Facebook event and dinner plans got bigger and better.
The local fire department held a turkey drive which brought in 100 donated birds, the city of Lincoln offered its event space for free, and a local casino offered busses to transport people from their hotels to the dinner. Townspeople and local restaurants offered to cook, companies donated art supplies and games to keep kids busy, and a local dog groomer offered to bathe and groom pets and give them a place to stay during the dinner.
"It’s going to be a good night out to get their minds off what's happened," Bermudez says.
Source: NBC News
A great Thanksgiving Day tradition
The thought of having Thanksgiving by himself was not at all appealing and Scott Macaulay says he hates to eat alone, so he decided to host a dinner for others so they could all eat together. That was 1985 and he invited 12 strangers to the turkey dinner and the tradition has continued to grow since. Now he’s getting ready to host his 33rd annual Thanksgiving feast for anyone who wants to come.
Macaulay posts the ad in his local paper and anyone who’s in the Melrose, Massachusetts area is welcome to RSVP and come eat for free. He usually gets between 60 and 100 takers and over the years, he’s fed college kids, widows and widowers, homeless people, and others who just don’t want to spend Thanksgiving alone. He serves turkey and all the trimmings, and five kinds of pie, but he doesn’t like to say how much he spends because that “would take away from the spirit of it.”
And Macaulay doesn’t just feed people in the space donated by a local church, he goes all out to really make it nice. He brings in sofas, recliners, oriental rugs, lamps, curtains, candlesticks, and even a few fake fireplaces to make it like cozy.
“This isn’t about the food, though,” Macaulay explains. “It’s about having a place to go. Silence is unbearable, especially on Thanksgiving. My goal is always to replicate the feeling of having a nice dinner in somebody’s home.”
Source: Washington Post