A Thanksgiving for everyone: Beaufort County events serve all walks of life
Air Force veteran Jay Barnes grew emotional when he thought about what the Community Thanksgiving Dinner on Hilton Head Island has meant to him.
This was Barnes' 16th year making his way to Hudson's Seafood on the Dock for the event.
Barnes, who lives in New Jersey but travels to South Carolina every year to work for a veterans organization, said he makes his trips to South Carolina coincide with the dinner.
Wearing a cap that marked him as a retired colonel in the Air Force Reserve, Barnes stood in a long line to be seated for the free, family-style meal Thursday, talking to everyone and smoking a cigar all the while.
"I have made more friends every time I come here than I do any other day," he said, tearing up as he remembered all the holidays spent at the event. "There's nothing else quite like this for me all year.
"You can have a sort of pretend family for the day. Everybody sits together at the table."
Barnes has watched the event grow from serving about 500 people a year to now making room for more than 1,600 guests and 400 volunteers, many of whom, like him, rely annually on the tradition for their Thanksgiving community and meal.
This year the event, run by members of the St. Andrew By-The-Sea United Methodist Church, served up 125 turkeys along with music, entertainment and a sense of community for people spanning all ages, socio-economic demographics and backgrounds. It includes wealthy tourists who plan their trip around the dinner and donate to the event, and people who can't afford a meal or have nowhere else to go.
"We get people from all over the world," said Alan LaCoe, one of the event organizers, who has worn his signature turkey hat to the dinner since it began in 1999. "But they can see this is what the Lowcountry is all about: community. Plus, the beautiful weather like this in November, right by the water."
The Hilton Head event was just one of several community celebrations of Thanksgiving in the Lowcountry.
George Webb and Dave Allen have been full and happy for the past 11 Thanksgivings, thanks to the Community Thanksgiving Dinner in Beaufort.
Webb, a retired special-education teacher, and his housemate Allen were two of more than 500 people who gathered Thursday for the 36th annual dinner put on by the Parish Church of St. Helena.
Allen has lived with Webb for 11 years through the S.C. Department of Mental Health's HomeShare program, which provides housing for people with mental illness by pairing them up with members of the community.
And for each of their 11 Thanksgivings together, Webb and Allen have come to the dinner to enjoy the company and the tradiational meal prepared by a bustling team of church volunteers.
"It's an excellent place for somebody that doesn't have a big family to go," Webb said. "It's just the two of us here now (after) my son died in a car accident.
"So this is perfect. The food is delicious, the people are nice, and there's no leftovers."
This year, church volunteers prepared 48 turkeys and tore through a tower of stuffing mixes to serve the crowd, said Roz Dixon, the dinner's coordinator.
The free dinner attracts people from all walks of life, Dixon said.
Dressed in a festive apron and busy running to get more supplies throughout the day, Dixon has run the show for the past nine years.
She sees managing the dinner as the most fulfilling way to celebrate the spirit of the holiday and the misson of her church, she said.
"This crowd is my whole family for the day," she said. "This is my Thanksgiving."
Dixon employs a team of dozens of volunteers, including a newcomer this year, Stanley Stroman, who since recently retiring from the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort has remained in the area.
Stroman performed food service in the Corps, so whipping up sweet potatoes and turkey gravy for 500 hungry locals was a relatively simple task.
"I've served 2,400 people," he said. "So this is nothing."
Stroman said he was volunteering for the first time this year as part of a renewed commitment to service.
"To me, this is touching," he said. "I'm glad I can do something to really give back today."
Follow reporter Erin Heffernan at twitter.com/IPBG_erinh.
Related content:
- PHOTOS: Beaufort church Thanksgiving dinner made possible because of volunteers, Nov. 26, 2015
- Good food, good memories at Thanksgiving dinner on Hilton Head Island, Nov. 28, 2013
- Lattimore, family to feed 1,000 for Thanksgiving in Ridgeland, Nov. 26, 2015
This story was originally published November 27, 2015 at 8:17 AM with the headline "A Thanksgiving for everyone: Beaufort County events serve all walks of life."