A feast for all: A community tradition with all the fixings

By Mary Owen

More than 700 people are expected to attend the Thanksgiving Eve dinner at the Covered Bridge Café.

The seventh annual Thanksgiving Dinner is hosted by cafe co-owners Cari Sessums and Christy Sessums, who carry out the tradition started by Mike Ely, owner of Charlie Mike’s. The dinner’s roots go back to St. Boniface Catholic Church in Sublimity, volunteer Judy Skinner said.

“We bought the restaurant in October 2006,” Christy said. “We had talked that year about not doing the dinner because we’d only been open a month, but so many people asked if it would still be going on. We thought this is important to some people, so let’s go ahead and do it.”

Last year, more than 1,000 people – 700 in the dining hall and another 350 or so take-outs – enjoyed turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetables, roll and Fiske’s mom’s famous pumpkin bars last year.

“Cari used to make the pumpkin bars until the dinner got so big,” Christy said. “Now the Lovin’ Oven bakes them using Cari’s mom’s recipe.”

Donations are asked for each dinner, and every year what the women take in covers the cost of the food.

“The rest of the money we give back to the community,” Christy said. Recipients have included the Stayton Food Bank.

This year’s dinner on Wednesday, Nov. 21 will start a half hour earlier than usual to accommodate the growing crowd. The event is 3:30 to 8 p.m. The deadline to order take-out dinners is Nov. 20 to Covered Bridge Café. Volunteers from Marion Search and Rescue, Sublimity Fire District and Stayton Police will deliver on Nov. 21.

“It’s amazing,” Christy said of their patrons who frequent the dinner each year. “The whole community comes together. It becomes such a fun evening.”

Some dinner-goers come for the company rather than the meal, Christy said. For others, the event is the only Thanksgiving dinner they’ll enjoy, she added.

“It’s a very long day for Cari and I and our families, but the reward of knowing someone who doesn’t have anyone can have a meal just makes us feel so good,” Christy said.

A lot of love goes into making the meal, including that of Sue Masse and Judy Skinner who sort all of the recycling the dinner produces.

“They stand outside in the freezing cold,” Christy said. “They put up a little tent if it’s raining. We call them the ‘green team.’”

Skinner, who helped start the first turkey dinner at St. Boniface, said, “All the dishes come out to us, and we filter them for compost and so forth. It’s just one of those things we do. We don’t have to make a big mess to do something good.”

Skinner has done myriad things for the dinner over the years, including asking churches to get behind the first Covered Bridge Café dinner just in case donations failed to cover the costs. Enough came in, even then, she said.

“We’ve made sure notices get out to the customers at the food bank so they know it’s happening,” Skinner said. “One year, when I was driving for Wheels of Joy, I actually picked up some people with the little bus and took them to the dinner. They were just so delighted!

“We just looked at what needed to be done and filled in where it was needed,” Skinner said.

Of the dinner, Christy said enthusiastically, “Everyone pitches in. It’s such a big community event. It’s just wonderful!”

Kelly Schreiber, executive director of the Stayton/Sublimity Chamber of Commerce, gave kudos to the community dinner, calling it a great opportunity that’s open to anyone who “just wants to come visit and break bread together.”

“The more you know your neighbor, the more vested interest you have in the community,” she said. “Helping others that have nowhere else to go for a Thanksgiving meal lets them know other people do care about them.”

Cari says the dinner is a way to give back to the community.

“Being humble in our business and just sharing with our community a wonderful time of food and togetherness,” Cari said. The event has its regulars, both diners and volunteers, she added.

“Fran and Curt Ward come every year,” Cari said. Helping each year are members of Foothills Church, Dr. Tim Burns and his dental team, Don Eubank and Jack and Toni Fiske as well as Masse and Skinner and others.

Summing up the essence of the event, Cari said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a big feast that everybody’s been invited to. We’re just trying to live that out.”

For information or to order dinners, call the Covered Bridge Café at 503-767-3945.