Beaufort County community Christmas dinner brings smiles to volunteers, guests alike
Everyone who attended the annual Hilton Head Community Christmas Dinner at First Presbyterian Church got at least two warm welcomes.
First, from Ann O'Brien, who has been a volunteer at the dinner for each of its 13 years, since it was a humble affair at Sticky Fingers.
Then, the doors of the church swept open as two women ushered visitors into a hall filled with the smell of roast turkey and the sound of carols.
Jimmy Cavanaugh, husband of one of the greeters, was on hand in case his wife, Marcie, was too ensconced in conversation with her once-a-year door buddy, Ginger, to direct guests into the main hall.
"You have to smile a lot, so you put a little coat hanger in your mouth," Cavanaugh, of Sun City, joked.
The annual celebration is as much a tradition for its hundreds of volunteers as it is for the diners, co-organizer Lois Willig says.
About 370 people chip in to bring the warm meal to up to 1,000 people, many of them without families of their own to spend the holiday with.
For the first time this year, the event also delivered turkey dinners to seven fire houses, and as always, the leftovers will feed others through Second Helpings.
All of the prep work was done by Christmas Eve, smoothing the process for those who arrived early on Friday.
"It was quite a production," Willig said. "It's amazing just to see how it all pulls together."
She and the other organizers also got some help from a family-owned Savannah company that had the answer to their prayers in the form of refrigerators on wheels.
When Willig found out that they would not be able to thaw their 100 turkeys at the church -- kept for weeks before in dozens of volunteers' home freezers -- Mobile Fridge Savannah stepped in to offer a hugely discounted deal on week-long rentals of some of its trucks.
"We were really hurting in dire straits," she said. "Everybody pitched in."
Many of the Santa-hatted volunteers spooned food onto guests' plates Friday morning, encouraging them to take just a bit more turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing.
Vegetables were a harder sell.
One man exclaimed, "Oh my god, are you trying to kill me?" as he skipped on to the pile of dinner rolls.
To each person who turned down a scoop of green beans, volunteer Dan Blair said the same thing -- "OK! No dessert then."
"This is my specialty," he said with a smile.
However, he was not in charge of the sweets table, where Melvin Nozick, Pat Pinchera and Bill McDougall let people sample one of everything if they wished.
The women have the system of slicing cakes and pies down to a science.
"I'm just an 18th wheel here," McDougall said, gesturing to Pinchera, whose sparkling, red hat was exploding with baubles and flashing lights.
The dinner lasted four hours, but by noon, the first wave of guests had already been fed and watered and entertained with a cake lighting for "the most important birthday of the year," as co-organizer Barbara O'Connor said.
When they departed, they got to pass O'Brien one more time, who has spirit to spare for each person who comes and goes.
"It's just great to be here and be with other people," she said. "To see the smiles on their faces."
Follow reporter Rebecca Lurye at twitter.com/IPBG_Rebecca.
Related content:
- The 'essence of Christmas': Community dinner serves hundreds, December 25, 2013
This story was originally published December 25, 2015 at 4:32 PM with the headline "Beaufort County community Christmas dinner brings smiles to volunteers, guests alike."