A Creemore Community Christmas Dinner

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The 11th Annual Creemore Community Christmas Dinner was once again a resounding success. Generous monetary gifts made it possible for the coordinators to purchase quality gifts from the community for 13 elderly folk without family who reside at Creedan Valley Nursing Home.

Upon their arrival at the festively decorated Station on the Green, dinner guests were welcomed by Karen Johnson and Ken Thornton. After each guest received a gift from Santa and his beautiful elves (who bore a striking resemblance to Ken Robertson, Rebecca Gee and Gabriella Thompson) all enjoyed the social hour with the talented Wipper family leading them in singing carols and other seasonal songs.

At 5:45 pm five take-away meals were packed for delivery by volunteers to four households in Creemore. Then, at 6 pm, master of ceremonies Murray Firth invited the 150 dinner guests to enjoy the delicious traditional hot buffet meal skillfully prepared by Chef Matthew Flett and his assistants Chef Malcolm Muth from Terra Nova Public House and Natalie Seltzer and Charlene Nero from the Bank Cafe, along with Andy Patrick and Ali Woodley. As always, all who wished to do so took home a reusable dish of their favourite part of the meal to enjoy the next day.

After clean-up by a large group of enthusiastic volunteers, all of the event’s equipment and decorations were packed up for storage at the home of Kate and Rowland Fleming.

The event coordinators are grateful to corporate donor Village Builders Inc. and to the New Farm and Hamilton Brothers and all the local businesses and individuals who donated funds, gift certificates, turkeys, vegetables and tasty home-baked desserts. The coordinators are especially grateful to all the volunteers ages 7 to 94 who generously gave of their time and effort to ensure this event would be successful. A list of the numerous donors will be published in next week’s edition of the Echo.

On Boxing Day Brian and Diane McKay loaded their van with the non-perishable food items the guests had brought to the event for delivery to the Salvation Army’s Hope Acres in Glencairn.

The above picture shows the coordinators of the 2012 Creemore Community Christmas Dinner, who have been volunteering together on this annual event for the past six years. From left to right are Murray Firth and his wife Karen Johnson, Ali Woodley and her partner Chef Matthew Flett, and Diane and Brian McKay. Absent from the team this year awaiting a hip replacement was Tim Armour, who played a big role in the event’s success over the past five years. Matthew and Ali have announced that they will be leaving the team to spend more time with family. Diane and the group thank them for generously sharing their cooking and serving expertise, advice, camaraderie and humour. Their participation will be greatly missed.

All photos are by Bryan Davies Photography.

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