DEER LODGE – Some generous people in the small town of Deer Lodge believe everyone should have a good meal on Thanksgiving.
“There’s a lot of people who need a Thanksgiving meal and you don’t want anyone to be without turkey and cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving,” said event organizer Shelli Boggess.
This is why the folks at the Powell County Senior Center have spent this week cooking more than 20 turkeys and preparing meals for more than 400 the town’s elderly and low-income residents. It takes a dedicated crew of volunteers to feed this village.
“I have a really good staff that works really hard. We get a fire crew from the prison that works really hard to help, like they helped yesterday. We’ve probably got 200 hours into prepping this with all the people,” said Boggess.
So when they talk about turkey dinner, they are not messing around; they want a really big dinner. We’re going to start with turkey of course. Dark meat as well. They’re definitely not stingy here. Then you’ve got to have stuffing, two scoops of sweet potatoes. Gravy is a requirement in these parts — and this is just the meal part.
Then we’ve got dessert coming. Like I said, they don’t mess around. They want leftovers.
“There’s a lot of people out there, you know, they might get a can of soup from the food pantry for Thanksgiving meal and their kids, and I want to make sure everyone in Deer Lodge has turkey in their fridge,” said Boggess.
Some volunteers are so thankful they’re compelled to give back to their community.
“I think that this is just a small thing that we can do. And we are just so blessed because we have like 50 people that show up and just spend time together, so I feel bad when they don’t have somebody to go to. I want to just give back and I love my community,” said Trina Kent.
The funding for this annual event is due to the generous donations from the community.
