Hi-Line Living: Community comes together at Thanksgiving dinner

Havre's annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner is a long-standing Havre tradition, with a history of serving people since an anonymous donor in 1984 started the tradition of bringing a communal environment and a free meal to anyone who wants to attend.

"It shows the heart of our community," Larry Larson said.

He added that he has been coming to the dinner since it first started and always enjoys seeing old friends and meeting new people.

The community dinner is a free Thanksgiving dinner offered to anyone in the community free of charge at St. Jude Parish Center.

The expenses have always been paid for by an anonymous donor. The original donor died in 2004, but another person has since stepped up to continue the tradition. The dinner is prepared and served by volunteers. 

Larson said he comes to the dinner every year because he enjoys being around people and seeing people he doesn't normally see throughout the year. He added that Thanksgiving is about taking time to spend with friends and family and the community dinner is a great way for people to spend the holiday.

Rachel Rawn said she likes to come out and see everyone in the community. She added that she and her boyfriend, Mitchell Dolphay, have been coming to the community dinner for the past three to four years. The dinner is an important part of the community because it gives people who would otherwise not have anywhere to go or anyone to spend the holiday with a place to come together. 

She added that having the dinner paid for by an anonymous donor gives the dinner something special.

"I guess it does give a certain kind of spirit to it that this person wanted the community to come together," she said.

Dolphay said that a wide range of people come to the dinner every year and it is heartwarming to see that no matter where a person is from or who they are they can come together for the holidays.

Frank Nissen, who recently moved back to Havre after living in Great Falls for the past five years, said that the community has changed in a number of ways since he moved but the community dinner is more or less the same. He added that a number of the people at the dinner are older, and many of the Baby Boomers are dying off or they or their families have moved, but he enjoys congregating with people. 

One of the reasons the community dinner is important is because it is a good place where everyone in the community can convene and share in the holiday, he said.

Larson said that every year he sees familiar faces, but also sees some new ones, whom he always enjoys having a chance to meet.

"It's just a great way to meet people," he said.

In the past, Larson has also volunteered at the dinner, he said, adding that all of the volunteers, although they are busy, always are having a great time joking and laughing with one another. 

Organizer Debi Rhines said that although the weather was bad, the dinner was still very well-attended, and a number of people also called for their Thanksgiving dinners to be delivered.

"It's a beautiful thing," she said. "It just flows so beautifully. It's like a godsend, it takes good care of us every day, like today, when it's treacherous outside."

She said that she has been volunteering since 2011, but even before she started volunteering, it has been a tradition in her family. She added that she remembers that decades prior, her father would pick up her husband and children to take them to the event.

The best part of the event for her, she said, is seeing the joy on everyone's faces, from the volunteers to those who have come to eat. She said the volunteers come with open hearts and the community come and enjoy spending time with one another.

"Thanksgiving means having a grateful heart and recognizing all the wonderful things we have in our lives, community, good food," Rhines said. "We live in a really nice community. We do have to look around and find the beauty in it."

She said that the event had about 125 volunteers this year, with 77 people volunteering for delivery, 25 volunteering to serve in the dining area and 23 people volunteering for meal preparation. She added that they delivered 430 meals in the morning. 

Head Chef Peter Bruni said he has been a volunteer with the community dinner since 2009, with this year being his last, due to his arthritis. He said someone who might take over has been shadowing him for the past two years. 

Bruni said he was a chef in the military for 20 years before coming to Havre to work as the executive chef at the Duck Inn. He added that with his background as a professional chief, he wanted to volunteer to put his skills to good use and give back to the community.

Since he started as the head chief, he said, he has also streamlined the process for the dinner to efficiently serve everyone who attends.

He said many things have to be done to make the dinner but he likes cooking it all. Bruni said he does a special gravy for the event to make it just a little more special, and this year they used fresh cranberries to make the cranberry sauce.

They cut 39 turkeys for dinner this year, Bruni added, each turkey was about 10 pounds, equaling about 390 pounds of turkey alone. He added that to make his dressing he uses 75 pounds of bread crumbs. He said that thanks to the volunteers and the process he uses to prepare the meals they had all the turkeys cut, wrapped and put away in less than 45 minutes.

"I turn around and no matter what, I always try to make it the best," he said.

He added that it is good to also see a wide range in ages of the people who volunteer. He enjoys giving back to the community and seeing and meeting all the people who come through and volunteer, and seeing younger people both volunteer and attend the community dinner.

"It's all about, kind of, family this way, with this meal going on, it kind of turns the community into a family," Bruni said.

First-year volunteer Michelle Oliver and her three daughters, Samantha, 17, Alyssa, 15, and Kamree, 12, said they also enjoyed participating in the dinner. Michelle Oliver said that she lives in Havre and wanted to volunteer at the community dinner because she wanted her children to have the chance to get out of the house and serve the community. 

"I don't want them to just think about themselves," she said. "I want them to think about other people all the time. It just helps open their eyes a little bit more."

She added that it was also good to see how many other people were at the event to volunteer.

Thanksgiving is about being thankful for what people have, Oliver said, being thankful for their health and all of the little things they have. While volunteering, she saw people try to pay for the dinner but were refused, she said. She said the dinner is not about money but is about giving out of the goodness in people's hearts.

"It's good to see people who aren't just thinking about themselves and really try to help everybody in the community," she said.

She added that some people really need the community dinner and it serves a great service to the whole community.

Samantha Oliver said she was really enjoying seeing all of the smiling faces of the people who were at the dinner, as well as meeting and conversing with new people.

"It was really fun," she said. "I really enjoyed it.

"Thanksgiving is a time that everyone should be helpful," she added. "It's a day you should give back and you should try and give to other people."

She said that she has lived a very blessed life and has had a lot of community support over the years, and volunteering is a great way for her to give back. She added that she also likes to see how happy the community dinner makes people and see the good in the world through the event.

Alyssa Oliver said she was having a lot of fun and everyone at the event very nice and polite. She said that the community dinner may be serving people free meals but the dinner is about a lot more, it's about helping people and coming together.

She added that it makes her feel better knowing they are able to help someone else out.