It was a holiday meal with all the trimmings last night at the Southwest Newcomer Welcome Center’s Thanksgiving dinner.
The Executive Director of the Icasiana de Gala Visitor Center provides details on the annual cultural event.
It’s our Thanksgiving dinner, we’ve been doing it every year I believe since 2013, so this is our 9th year. We started with one turkey and now we have eleven turkeys I think and ham and a lot of other stuff there. We are delighted to have been able to do it again.
De Gala adds that despite the pandemic of the past two years, they have continued the holiday meal by delivering the meals to the recipients.
As for how the holiday meal started, De Gala provides some insight.
It was one of our volunteers, a student on an internship, who came up with the idea. They said why not have a traditional Canadian Thanksgiving dinner because everyone celebrates it at Christmas. Thanksgiving is very North American. We thought if there was one Canadian tradition that we would like to introduce to our newcomers, this would be it.
Over 200 tickets were given away for the event which took place at Christ The Redeemer Roman Catholic Church.
De Gala would like to thank everyone present as well as all the staff of the Center d’accueil who set everything up with the volunteers.
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