Thanksgiving is an important way for all of us to celebrate over a traditional dinner with friends and family and the gratitude we feel for the blessings of the past year. Nothing smells quite so inviting as a turkey slowly roasting in the oven, but for a variety of reasons it may not be possible for everyone to cook and be with their families at Thanksgiving. Well, a quite remarkable woman by the name of Kesia Labuda has you covered on this. For the past ten years Kesia and her friends, family and volunteers have been providing a wonderful traditional home cooked Thanksgiving dinner for anyone who would like a meal- all free of charge. Each year these fabulous folks have provided between seventy and ninety Thanksgiving meals to our local community residents. The Thanksgiving Community Dinner takes place on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday November 23rd, at the Lumberland Town Hall which becomes transformed into a beautiful dining room for the day with flowers, tablecloths, and decorations. The dinner is eat in or take out and consists of all of the traditional fixings-salad, turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, stuffing, dinner rolls and a choice of a dessert. During Covid I delivered some of these dinners to people who could not get to the Town Hall, and everyone was so happy to get their delicious meal and celebrate Thanksgiving.

Kesia told me “This year is a very special year for us as it marks our tenth anniversary! We are especially grateful for the Spradlings that have helped and showed up every single year and they are just as responsible for the success of this event as we are.  We could not be more excited to give back to our community where we have the opportunity to bring people together and make new friends. We are asking that all that are able to do so stop by and grab a warm freshly cooked homemade Thanksgiving meal. We look forward to seeing familiar and some new faces this year!”

The thanksgiving celebration is from Noon until 3pm. They are recommending that you call Kesia at 845-672-3896 and let her know how many meals you need. The Lumberland Town Hall is located at 1054 Proctor Road in Glen Spey. Kesia Labuda and her family and volunteers are to be commended for independently raising the necessary funds, putting together all of the planning, and maintaining this very generous Thanksgiving Day Community Dinner tradition for all these years. Please try and call Kesia with your reservation by Monday, November 20th. Our thanks and heartfelt congratulations to Kesia and her family, friends, and volunteers on ten years of graciously providing her neighbors with the Thanksgiving Community Dinner. 

On that note, it is always good to check and see how your local community food pantry is doing. Many of the food banks and pantries have seen a higher than usual demand lately. Most have lists of items they need for their Thanksgiving and Christmas distributions. For a directory of pantries and food banks and other helpful social services agencies near you go to www.sullivanny.us or www.regionalfoodbank.net and locate resources by the zip code.