Welcome back to this week’s installment of Fairfield Stories. This week, we’re featuring the annual Thanksgiving feed held at the First United Methodist Church, just off of the square.

This event has taken place every year for the past 5 years. I first found out about the event from Dave Goehring,  who works for Pierson and Pierson Plumbing, when he was under my sink a few days before Thanksgiving this year. After thanking him profusely for fixing it prior to my company arriving, Dave asked how many people we’d be having for dinner. When I responded with “10″ he chuckled and said, “oh that’s not so many.” That begged the question, “how many are you having Dave?” The answer “Oh, 300 or so.”

With that, I asked Dave to meet me at Second Street for a cup of coffee as I knew that this was a story that needed to be told.

5 years ago the Church sent a group of students on a mission to the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Lame Deer, Montana. After an exhilarating few days helping out in any way they could, one of the students wondered aloud why they have to go so far away to help people. Why couldn’t they do it in their own town? The Thanksgiving Feed was conceived.

That first year they fed 61 people. Associate Pastor Dave Peterson still has a momento of that event that practically brought tears to Dave Goehring’s eyes when he described it to me. It’s a napkin. A napkin with a note written on it from the very first person they fed that evening, expressing his appreciation for the feast.

The feed has grown enormously since that first year. Dave has been running it for two years now and as you’d imagine with giving souls like Dave, his wife Rhonda, his daughter Amy (who is now away at college) and even his parents work with him to plan and execute this amazing local event.

They feed people from “all walks of life” according to Dave. Who, by the way is so humble that he wouldn’t allow me to take a picture of him and he insisted that I give as little credit to him as possible. Surely, it takes a village, and as you’d imagine, he gave Christ his due, but it also takes a leader and IMHO there seems to be no better leader for an endeavor like this than Dave Goehring…

So back to the feed. Not only does First Methodist participate, but so do other congregations from around Fairfield. Volunteers come from as many walks of life as the people who are fed, and they do everything from outreach about the event, to cooking, serving and clean-up. Dave characterized the volunteer effort as a “family reunion” that comes together once the word is put out to local churches. According to Dave “it just happens.”

In 2009, 230 people were fed by Dave and his crew of about 40 volunteers. The meal included numerous turkeys donated by the local Hy-Vee, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce (new this year) and 15-20 different home baked pies served in the “pie room” as Dave referred to it. “Something for everybody.”

The feed doesn’t just serve people at the Church either. A few years ago, they took on Meals-on-Wheels duties on Thanksgiving Day which happened after parishoner Jack Glass who was heaily involved in Meals-on-Wheels passed a few years ago. They also serve other folks who are too feeble to leave their homes and who are not a part of Meals-on Wheels. This effort served about 70 of the 230 people who were served in 2009.

The entire event comes together in about 2-3 weeks. The call goes out and the volunteers just start working. Right up to Thanksgiving day conversations such as “can we use another pie?” occur and another one is delivered to the pie room.  Dave doesn’t ever worry about it coming together – it just does. In fact the only complaint he ever gets is that there’s too much food. So as you’d imagine, there are doggie-bags for all – with extra helpings of pie, of course.

This Thanksgiving feed not only has something for everybody, but is attended by everybody – rich, poor, religious, non-religious, townie, meditator. This year a family of 13 showed up. And as powerful a draw as free, home-cooked food is, Dave believes that most people are showing up for the atmosphere and cameraderie as most stay long after the food stops being served.

As Dave said in closing about his experience with the Thanksgiving feed, “truly a gift” and I do believe that it is.