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Family and friends, locally grown food and home-cooked meals, a community that offers a helping hand when needed, without being asked.
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Michaela Handke, 13, left, holds her one-year-old niece, Ainsley Rice, on Monday as Carol Brewton, center, Tim Fleet and Dave McKern, far right, visit and finish dessert during the third annual Thankful Meal at Riverway Learning Community in Minnesota City. The school served 150 to 200 students, faculty, family and community members who gathered to share a meal.
(Photo by Melissa Carlo/Winona Daily News)
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The Minnesota City school community gave thanks Monday during its third-annual Thankful Meal.
Between 150 and 200 people showed up to the small charter school to say thanks and eat roast turkey, giblet dressing, green bean casserole and other Thanksgiving trimmings.
The tradition brings volunteers, parents and friends from around town for the meal. Banners with written thanks line the walls. Banjo music and singing greeted visitors at the front door.
This year’s event had a new twist: The meal was cooked at the school, thanks to Riverway’s revamped kitchen. Much of the food was either grown there or elsewhere locally.
Cook David McKern said he was thankful to be able to cook so much food from scratch this year.
“I’m most thankful to be able to serve the children,” he said.
Classes held an Economics Bazaar, where students sold crafts they made to raise money for class trips to Chicago, Colorado or the Audubon Center of the North Woods, in Sandstone, Minn.
McKern’s daughter, Kayton, made pillow cases and flowers to place at the end of pens. She learned how to price items and get good deals for materials, she said. And she remembered how thankful she was for her family.
Her brother goes to the school, her father is the cook/maintenance worker/ groundskeeper, and her mother is a secretary.
myepinion wrote on Nov 25, 2008 8:06 AM: