GILROY
– Forget that 11-year-old Ryan Wellander spent Wednesday night
struggling to stay warm in the school bus he’s calling home,
because Thursday he had plenty to be thankful for as his smile grew
with each helping of tender turkey, steaming mashed potatoes and
whip cream-kissed pumpkin pie he consumed
.
GILROY – Forget that 11-year-old Ryan Wellander spent Wednesday night struggling to stay warm in the school bus he’s calling home, because Thursday he had plenty to be thankful for as his smile grew with each helping of tender turkey, steaming mashed potatoes and whip cream-kissed pumpkin pie he consumed.
“This food is great, I mean really good, and they let you take as much as you want,” said a visibly content Ryan, who was one of nearly 300 local people, including his mom Jacqlyn Hubbard and her husband Don Hubbard, who took advantage of St. Joseph Family Center’s annual Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless and low-income in the Gilroy area. More than 200 people attended the dinner last year.
“I really like sharing this way – it’s great,” Ryan said. “The guy sitting next to me told me some really good jokes. … I feel like I know everybody here even though I never met them; you know what I mean? I mean it just feels good – I’m full, and I have a lot of energy, and I turn 12 on Sunday.”
Ryan’s sentiments were shared by the hundreds of local singles, couples, families, migrant field workers and dot-com refugees struggling to keep their bellies full in the empty economic times.
As Ryan looked around the St. Mary School gym, 111 First St., he saw 100 reasons to give thanks, although he’ll probably be hungry again today.
But Thursday Ryan saw the 100 volunteers who transformed the St. Mary School’s gym into the largest family gathering in town, providing a haven of warmth and comfort to families who rarely have enough of either.
Saturated with the aroma of home cooking, filled with the sounds of live holiday music laughter and conversation, and decorated to the T, it was hard to imagine that a basketball court lay somewhere in the gym.
“This makes me feel more thankful for everything and my family,” said Justin Wheat, 12, who, along with St. Mary School friends Martin Kerstens, 13, and Dominic Filice, 11, helped serve pumpkin pie in their school gym Thursday. “I know this is important.”
Many veteran St. Joseph’s volunteers noticed an increase in people taking advantage of the free Thanksgiving meal and all the fixings this year, which can be attributed to economy, said Lou “The Potato King” Eros, a volunteer who cooks for the Lord’s Table at St. Mary School three times a week.
Ending up on the street can happen fast, and it can happened to anybody, said Eros, who lost his job in the technology field during the last year.
“St. Joe’s is helping me, and now it’s my turn to give something back,” he said. “Everyone’s feeling the tough times right now – this is when we need to help each other as people.”
Recognizing that need for help, St. Joseph’s and the Lord’s Table recruited Val Filice and his legendary crew of cooks to prepare the tasty feast. Volunteers began cooking food at 7 a.m. Wednesday – baking 35 turkeys – and didn’t stop until around 2 p.m. Thursday.
“I’ve been cooking like this for 50 years, and I always remember why,” Filice said. “It’s a simple old Italian saying: If you can fill someone’s stomach, they will always be happy.”
Most of the leftovers from Thursday will be served at the Lord’s Table normal dinner time Sunday, said Sue Moon, the Lord’s Table coordinator. Moon expressed gratitude for the small army of volunteers on Thanksgiving, but realizes it takes more than one hot meal to get a family out of poverty.
“Without the volunteers, there would be a lot more hungry people in our community,” Moon said. “But we also need to realize that people are hungry more than one day of the year.”
Ryan and his mom Jacqlyn Hubbard don’t need to be reminded of this, but Jacqlyn said if there is one place in the world she had to be homeless on Thanksgiving, it would be Gilroy.
“We’ve been all over,” said Jacqlyn, who found out about the Thanksgiving feast when she and Ryan went to the Lord’s Table for dinner Tuesday. “But I’ve never seen anything like how the people give you support in Gilroy.”
