Whew!! Thanksgiving is over, and more importantly, the Cares 2007 Thanksgiving Extravaganza has come to an end. As predicted, this year was a total blessing to all who were involved but more on that later. The beginning of food preparation started on Friday by baking 47 pies we had purchased the night before. By the time all of the pies were out of the eight ovens and cooling, it was time for all seven of us to head out on the shopping adventure of a lifetime. Our first stop was my secret crush, Sam’s Club. (Where else can you purchase green beans by the gallon and rolls of aluminum foil so large that it takes two of you to get it into the cart? Pure heaven, I tell ya!) After shopping, we all grabbed dinner at the Sam’s Club concession stand for less than $22. It wasn’t nutritionally beneficial, but it sure was AMAZING!

Shopping at Sam’s Club.

	One of three full Sam’s carts.
	$300 worth of food at Sam’s.
	All of our donated gift cards.

After Sam’s we headed to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart on a Friday night happens to be one of the most painful activities anyone can choose in Flagstaff. But luckily we had a short list… 50 boxes of Turkey Stove Top Stuffing, 15 cans of Cream of Mushroom soup, 12 cans of Candied Yams, and 4 bags of marshmallows. One of my favorite parts of these annual shopping trips have always been the reactions of people watching us count out our purchases. One elderly man actually said to me as we were loading up the stuffing, “Wow, you must like stuffing.” I had to giggle at his automatic assumption that all 50 boxes were headed home with me…. nice.

7 of the 20 turkeys.

Next, we hit all four of the major grocery stores in town… Basha’s, Fry’s, Albertson’s, and Safeway. From 30 roaster pans for $0.50 a piece to Cool-Whip that was $0.59 a tub, each store had some sale or bulk bargain that we needed to exploit in order to stay under our $600 budget. Finally after 4.5 hours, we returned back to the apartment complexes and unloaded the three vehicles we had filled with goodies and began to prep the rolls. Soon all 832 rolls were placed into every available container to rise, and day 1 was over.

	A full Durango.
	Roll prep.

Saturday morning was designated as the time to bake all of the rolls, while the afternoon was spent filling bathtubs with thawing turkeys, running last-minute errands, picking up donated pies, and finding the perfect eight hams to serve the next day. One of the hiccups we faced Saturday was the realization that the hosting CaresTeam had not booked the clubhouse for the day before the dinner so that we could set up. Instead the management allowed a kid’s birthday party to lay claim on the space from 10am – 5pm that day. (Nothing like not being able to begin setting up until late Saturday night.) The other members of the teams spent Saturday evening loading all the tables and chairs that Keri’s church was allowing us to borrow and setting them up in the clubhouse. I lucked out of having to participate in this chore since Lauren and I had The Format tickets.

After the show, I made a quick stop at Wal-Mart and headed home to spend the next 2 hours creating a color-coded chart for the baking times and oven locations of the twenty turkeys and eight hams in our eight kitchens. Turkeys were put in the oven as pairs and scheduled so that two done turkeys came out of the oven every twenty minutes. Yes, I am that OCD. Finally around 2:30am, I crawled into bed. Keri and I began Sunday at 8am with poster making and last minute baking calculations. By 10:30am the first turkeys were in the ovens and the clubhouse was decorated and completely setup.

	My Thanksgiving Baking Schedule.
	Turkeys prepped and ready for baking.
	48 boxes of Stove Top.
	All the fruit pies.

By 2:30pm the first turkeys were out and resting, and we were beginning the last minute food preparations. Its amazing how quick the last hour goes. With 15 minutes left to spare, food was hot and in its serving dishes, the turkeys and hams were carved, and people were lining up to eat. It was showtime. After a quick prayer, we let the crowd begin to make their plates and dig in. Within the first 40 minutes, we served over 160 people. It was truly an awesome time and outstanding feeling to watch all of our hard work pay off. I can’t even tell you how many hugs I received on Sunday. Hugs from residents with full bellies and fuller hearts. Hugs from other CaresTeams in celebration of our success. Hugs from friends who came to help and knew sometimes you just have to stop the chaos and hug. Playing with the kids on the playground, being made fun of for looking like a bobble-head doll, or holding a baby while a new mom takes a moment to breathe and enjoy a meal for once are just some of the reasons that make me want to do it all over again.

	The Great Spread of Thanksgiving Goodies.
	Our many residents.

One of my favorite moments on Sunday came when I had the opportunity to ask one of our residents if she would like to take some food home with her. It was later in the evening, and the crowd had dwindled. She is older and one of our quieter residents. She comes to many of our events but never sticks around to visit. Sunday she came in and sat to eat alone again. We purposefully had made extra food to send home with people who might not have their own Thanksgiving and for some reason I knew this one of the neighbors we needed to help. With no real task at hand I sat to chat with her and in the midst of a casual conversation, I asked if she would consider taking some of the food home with her… we had tons of left-overs and didn’t want anything to go to waste. At first she was quiet, and I was worried I had offended her. Finally, she asked me if I was serious. I assured her that I was completely serious and if she allowed me to, I would pack up a complete Thanksgiving meal for her to take home. The next thing I knew this strong, stoic woman was crying and confiding that her daughter was 8 eight months pregnant with a husband who was working in Phoenix. With the daughter and two sons living with her she was worried how she was gonna make ends meet and how she could afford to even celebrate Thanksgiving. For the first time, she hugged me. I asked one of our male volunteers to carry four loads of food to her car and then help her carry the food into her apartment. Our simple offer had unburdened her if just for a few days and her gratitude caused us to forget our aching feet and burned hands.

By 7:30pm we were shutting down and cleaning up. Amazingly, residents had come back to help us put everything back in order, and for the first Thanksgiving Dinner in my four years, we had more help in cleaning than we needed. It took less than 2 hours to remove all evidence that we had fed over 600 people in less than 4 hours from a clubhouse kitchen. Chairs and tables were returned to the church, and all of the dishes were washed and presented to their rightful owners. Finally, we all looked around and took a deep breath. We were done. After a final prayer and a few hugs, we hopped into our vehicles and headed to our own complexes and apartments. Keri, Lauren, and I sat around in my living room for the next two hour recapping the events of the past few days. We each shared stories of the people we had interacted with and enjoying the blessing of finally putting our feet up. Sleep never came so quickly or felt so refreshing as it did that night. As I got up and got ready for work on Monday, I felt a small twinge of sadness that it all was over and that I wouldn’t be hanging out with the other six members of the Thanksgiving posse. But that’s the thing about an endeavor like this… you put in a lot of work and in the end, it goes by so quickly. Even know as I think about the lines of people, bathtubs of turkeys and gallons of gravy, I can’t help but be excited for next year.

Even with all of the preparations, organization, experience, and obsessive scheduling, none of what we accomplished on Sunday could have happened without our volunteers and donations. Old friends, church buddies, residents, and co-workers all showed up with a willingness to do whatever was asked of them to help keep us sane and accomplish our goal. From carrying steaming turkeys to washing dishes to making mashed potatoes by the gallon to even helping put out a small kitchen fire, words cannot express our gratitude for their service. While it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a small army to pull off a Thanksgiving dinner, and their service eased the burden and touched lives. Whether they donated their resources, partnered in prayer, offered words of encouragement, listened to me rant about turkey prices or the perfect food to person ratio, or came and lent a helping hand…. all I can say is “Thank you.”