With an “army” of volunteers and months of preparation and planning the Devils Lake Kiwanis Club saw another successful Community Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday, Nov. 28 at the KC Hall.

Assisted by Frenchie’s Catering at the Whitehouse Cafe and Leevers Foods they managed to feed an estimated over 500 people this year in home deliveries, meals to go or dining in meals. The only hitch was keeping up with the demand as the lines formed shortly before 11 a.m. and really didn’t go down until serving ended at 1 p.m.

Kiwanis Secretary Dave Nick, who coordinated all the delivery routes, said at the beginning of the day, they’d already had 499 call-in reservations, topping last year’s count considerably. This year they’d hoped even those who planned to dine in the KC Hall would call in for a reservation, and many of them did. However, another estimated 80 – 100+ diners and to go meals stopped in without reservations.

It was touch and go sometimes as another batch of mashed potatoes or stuffing or gravy had to be prepared but thanks to Lisa Crosby, Sunshine Brening, Debra Schlenker and Kathy Theissen with many other volunteers the day was a huge success and they never did run out of food, although that was the big concern most of the day.

Those who dined in this year got an extra treat as pieces of Roger Gunderson’s homemade lefse were handed out to each diner by young volunteers Ryker and Skylar.

Even the Devils Lake Ambulance crew got into the act as Sean Roed and his lovely assistants delivered large orders of meals to the Lake Region First Responders and the Devils Lake Hospital.

It is only a matter of 22 days before Kiwanis does this again on Christmas Day, so make your plans for Dec. 25 and if you want a home delivered meal (or two or more), meals to go or if you wish to dine in the KC Hall with your whole family or just a friend, make sure you call in your reservation so they can adequately plan your Christmas Dinner for Christmas Day. Call Dave at 351-7285 before December 18 to let the club know how many you need/want. A story will follow in the Devils Lake Journal with more details about what is being served, etc. for that meal. Volunteers are always welcome!