Families get help for Thanksgiving holiday

Community members came together over the weekend to prepare and deliver Thanksgiving baskets to 81 area families. More than 50 volunteers gathered at the Community Congregational Church on Sunday to pack and deliver the baskets to families from Thompson Falls to Noxon.

Ron Reedy with the Community Congregational Church has been helping to organize the event since 2002. He said that while the number of families signed up for baskets this year was down, the turnout was good, and they were able to help a lot of families. Reedy said that contributions are accepted throughout the year, and the staff at Sanders County Harvest Foods in Thompson Falls is always helpful in getting the order placed. Reedy complimented the Harvest Foods staff for helping year after year.

"We've never been able to not help," Reedy said of the Thanksgiving baskets, noting that each year they get all the food necessary to help local families. He said that in 2016, more than 100 families received baskets. He said the first year, 27 families received baskets.

Matt Schraeder has been the pastor at Community Congregational Church since 2011. He said that an addition to the church has allowed them to have more space to put the Thanksgiving baskets together. Though on Sunday it felt crowded in the room with so many volunteers and stacks of canned goods, boxes of stuffing, eggs and bags of potatoes, Schraeder said it was even more crowded before the additional space was available at the church.

It might seem like an overwhelming task to get more than two dozen items in each of the 81 baskets. On Sunday, you could tell Reedy has been doing this for 17 years. Reedy organized volunteers in pairs. Each pair was given a task of putting a specific item in each basket, with baskets of four different sizes. When the dry goods (such as stuffing mix, canned goods and pie crusts) were in the boxes, the group then moved on to produce. Apples, lettuce, celery, onions and potatoes were distributed by volunteers on Saturday so that the group on Sunday could easily grab the correct portion based on box size. As people took baskets to deliver, they grabbed turkeys from a large enclosed trailer.

The room that seemed full of food and boxes when the group started at 2 p.m. on Sunday was cleared in about an hour, with volunteers headed throughout the area to deliver the boxes.

Kacey Van Zanten, a student at Thompson Falls High School, said this was her sixth year to help put together and deliver the Thanksgiving baskets. She said the first year she helped, the whole room was filled with boxes. And although she said this year the number of baskets and people were smaller, she said it made her feel genuine and proud to help out. Van Zanten also said that people are happy when they get the baskets, and it makes her thankful.

Students from Building Bridges helped gather the food from Harvest Foods and unloaded it at the church, and groups from Reflections Academy and Explorations helped on Sunday.

Both Schrader and Reedy were appreciative of the community support for the event, both in donations and volunteers. The church plans to continue the tradition of helping others on Thanksgiving. "If I'm alive, we'll keep doing it," Reedy said.