Putting food on the table for Thanksgiving
By Ashleigh Plemper
Farmer Staff Writer
Local residents needing something to feast on this Thanksgiving got a helping hand on Thursday, Nov. 19, as the Watford City Area Chamber of Commerce provided 100 turkeys and 100 food boxes to the McKenzie County Food Pantry for a food give-away.
“Normally, we would have had Turkey Bingo. But because of COVID-19 and following the governor’s mandate, we cancelled the event this year,” says Mary Gumke, Watford City Area Chamber of Commerce executive director. “But we still had businesses that wanted to donate.”
Upon receiving the word that businesses still wanted to donate turkeys, Gumke says the Chamber then asked other businesses to provide all the fixings for a Thanksgiving dinner in a box.
“We had a lot of businesses that still wanted to donate in some way so they decided to do the boxes and we had a great turnout,” Gumke says.
According to Kay O’Connor, who coordinates the McKenzie County Food Pantry giveaways and food hand-outs, as many as 122 families lined up to receive their Thanksgiving meal.