Diners attend dinner in droves
Kevin Hoffman
Mail Staff Writer
Nearly 500 Salida community members sat down to dinner at Saint Joseph Church, or ordered turkey to go Thursday during the annual Thanksgiving dinner.
The impressive number of people congregating for the dinner was only matched by the impressive amount of food served at the event.
Head cook Jerry Raski said 24 turkeys were cooked in the days preceding the dinner. Estimated at 12 pounds apiece they accounted for 288 total pounds of turkey served.
To accompany the turkey 13 bags of potatoes, four cases of sweet potatoes, three cases of dressing and two cases of green beans were prepared. Each case had six 10-pound cans.
Jody LiVecchi, organizer, said the volunteer effort to host the dinner was the ingredient for success however. Approximately 75 volunteers invested three weeks in planning and one week of cooking to pull off the feast.
"Each year I'm just humbled. I've got the best people behind me and they make a difficult task easy," LiVecchi said.
The most humbling experiences, LiVecchi said, are those like Carol Smith and Perfecto Rivera who came in at 5:30 a.m. during the days leading up to the event to start cooking.
LiVecchi credited kitchen volunteers, Raski and his wife Judy Raski as head chefs; Bruce and Peggy Peterson for making a sweet potato and apple combination; Barbara and Jim Preston for preparing the green beans; and Lynn and Dennis Hoover for their potatoes.
LiVecchi had praise for each of the volunteers and a "shout out" to the pie makers who donated dessert.
Pie makers donated more than 50 pies to the dinner.
In her five years of organizing the dinner LeVecchi said the outcome has been consistent, but she attributed the large turnout on Thursday to nice weather.
"We really didn't know what to expect, with the nice weather and the economy, luckily we had enough food," she said.
In the 500-person head count she estimated a 40 percent increase in carry-out orders. Veteran drivers Jim LiVecche, Dick Eustis and Randy Schweitzer and volunteers from UPS all helped with the delivery effort.
As for leftovers, Jody LiVecche said the volunteers were dispatched with what was left.
Donations were accepted to aid in funding the Thanksgiving dinner for next year.
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