Free North Coast Thanksgiving dinners delivered as COVID-19 cancels dine-in, takeout
The COVID-19 pandemic has gutted another treasured North Coast tradition in 2020 — the free Thanksgiving dinner at Cambria’s Veterans Memorial Building.
State and San Luis Obispo County guidelines about the virus still restrict the number of people who should congregate for any occasion, including Thanksgiving. Scientists and health departments have even issued strong recommendations on how to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus at home by limiting how many people will gather together there for the holiday.
According to Thanksgiving day dinner committee member Ann Wride of Cambria, Cambria Vineyard Church volunteers were determined to continue the North Coast tradition even in the midst of the pandemic.
They pledged to somehow feed as many as they could of the most vulnerable people who normally benefit from the annual free meal — giving special preference to the housebound, invalids, seniors and people who cannot leave their homes.
Others to be fed for free include some who will be dining alone, those for whom picking up take-out meals would be difficult and people whose lives have been so harshly impacted by the novel coronavirus that they couldn’t afford to do their own Thanksgiving meal.
As Vineyard pastor Gary White said via email, “The heart of our Thanksgiving dinner team — from all the churches and community groups — has been to find a way to touch lives in a positive and loving way this year. Even though we have the same limitations we are all struggling with, I’m proud of this team for finding a path forward that will touch the lives of those folks in our community that need to be lifted up!”
Thanksgiving dinners delivered this year
Instead of takeout or dine-in dinners, this year’s free holiday turkey dinners on the North Coast will be personally delivered to needy people, as some of the meals have been for years.
Wride said by phone that various people already had requested meals for themselves as well as families, neighbors and parishioners.
The 2020 meal process will be more complicated and cumbersome than the traditional in-house dinners served en masse at the vets hall, where Vineyard and other groups served up to 800 people on Thanksgivings in the recent past.
As of Monday, Wride was estimating that organizers will receive requests for, and be able to deliver properly, about 400 meals this year.
This year’s menu will feature turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, vegetables, cranberry sauce, and a piece of pie, with the latter packed separately.
Sadly, because the pick-up and delivery process must be so precise and time sensitive, this year’s enrollment had to be limited, and signups close Tuesday, Wride said with regret. “We hated to have to do it that way, but we felt it would have been worse not to do it at all.”
Diners can register by calling Wride at 805-440-3004.
The early reservation deadline was because participating restaurants had long lead times for ordering ingredients and getting them delivered in time to the county’s northwestern corner, an area to which some suppliers deliver only once a week.
Wride said Nov. 2 that the committee already had signed up about 16 volunteer drivers who will pick up and deliver the fresh, hot meals according to carefully plotted routes.
Participating restaurants are being paid through grants and gifts from the Cambria Community Council, Cambria’s Anonymous Neighbors, Lions Club, Rotary Club and individual donors.
The volunteer team slots are filled, Wride said, but people can still contribute to the effort by sending checks made out to Cambria Vineyard Church, 1617 Main St., Cambria, CA 93428. Be sure to mark the donation as being given toward the Thanksgiving dinner fund.
“We sure hope things will return to normal next year,” Wride said, to which White added, “Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!”
Cambrians feed people for free on Thanksgiving
The small town’s Thanksgiving-holiday largesse started decades ago, and the sharing event has grown steadily through the years.
The Cambria dinner celebration started small in the mid-1980s, when Vineyard pastor Bobby de Lancelotti was determined to make things a little nicer for people who didn’t have any place to go for Thanksgiving or enough money to prepare a holiday feast for their families.
An ecumenical team organized to provide free holiday food, companionship and celebration.
However, the first North Coast dinner wasn’t held on Thanksgiving or even in town, according to Teri McCall. Instead, five turkeys were dished up at the Cayucos Veterans Memorial Building on the day before the holiday.
The small event drew primarily homeless and disenfranchised people with no place or means for celebrating the holiday.
Subsequently, dinner was served at the Joslyn Center, de Lancelotti recalled recently, and even once at the Chuck Wagon Restaurant on Moonstone Beach Drive, where El Colibri Motel is being built.
A few years later — after Vineyard moved its services to the church hall where Bridge Street Inn is now — de Lancelotti and his team decided the event should be held on Thanksgiving Day at the church.
Most of the food was cooked in the tiny kitchen of what is now The Tea Cozy, but what was then Robin’s Restaurant.
Soon, the dinner outgrew both facilities.
After participants took some time off to regroup, the Thanksgiving Day community meal resurfaced at the Veterans Memorial Building. That’s where it’s been held ever since, before COVID-19 derailed this year’s plans.
Universalist church gives food to families in Cambria, San Simeon
For the fifth year, the Unitarian Universalist Community of Cambria (UUCC), in conjunction with Danilda Reyes and LINK Family Resources, will collect food and distribute it during the week before Thanksgiving to families in Cambria and San Simeon.
UUCC donates a check toward the larger items, and everyone donates additional food that fills out the baskets given to the families.
Donate items between 12:30 and 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7, and Saturday, Nov. 14, at UUCC, 786 Arlington St. in Cambria’s West Village. Or leave items at the back door on either of those Saturday mornings.
Among the items being collected are potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, canned fruit, corn, beans, green beans, onions, garlic, pumpkin seeds, dried fruit and cookies and crackers.
For more information, go to www.uuccambria.org.
This story was originally published November 6, 2020 at 4:37 PM.
