The sixth annual community Christmas Dinner was a fantastic time for both volunteers and diners.
This year volunteers cooked up 19 turkeys, hundreds of pounds of potatoes (with gravy), carrots, turnips, sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, dressing, buns and finished the dinner off with pumpkin pie and whipped cream.
They served 346 dinners, with 254 of those take-outs and deliveries. The remaining 92 were dine-ins, said Lianne Hamblin from the Barriere and Area Chamber of Commerce.
"None of this would have been possible without the help of all of the volunteers, some of which have been helping since the conception of this dinner six years ago. I don’t have a firm number on the number of people that volunteer, but I estimate that it’s around 50."
The planning starts in mid-October with a meeting where organizers go over the previous year’s dinner. They look at what last year’s dinner was like, and decide how to make it better, or more efficient.
"Laura Mairs and her amazing kitchen volunteers take care of the planning of the menu, shopping, prepping the meal, and cooking the meal. I don’t know how they do it, but they’re always on time, and they make it all look so effortless," said Hamblin.
Hamblin does the planning for the rest of the meal, taking care of the reservations, arranging the volunteers, finding sponsors, and setting up the hall for the dinner.
This too is planned to the smallest detail, Hamblin added.
"There are a lot of moving parts to put on a dinner this size and every single person that comes out to help is so appreciated. We could not do any of this without the help of the kitchen staff, the planners, the delivery drivers, the servers, and the people packing up the bags."
Thanking the sponsors, Hamblin listed First Quantum Minerals, Barriere and Area Chamber of Commerce, Barriere Elementary School students and teachers (for the beautiful bags), Armour Mtn Bookkeeping and Tax Services Inc., Barriere IDA, Barriere Lions Club, Bev Murphy, District of Barriere, Interior Savings Credit Union, The Printroom, TNRD, Shane Bakey Ltd., Barriere Laundromat, Taseko Mining, and Barriere Food Bank.
"We would also like to thank all of the people who donated money to us for the dinner. Every single penny that is donated goes to either this year, or next year’s dinner," she said. "It takes a village to put on a dinner like this, and we feel so blessed to be able to do this every year. See you next year."
