Blessings Count

WASILLA — Marlene Sample feels her family is blessed.

Sample was all smiles Saturday carrying bags loaded with apples, potatoes, rolls, vegetables and all the fixings for a Thanskgiving feast. She was one of more than 1,200 local families to pack into Good Shepherd Lutheran Church for the first Valley Thanksgiving Blessing event.

“I am very impressed that the churches are taking over and helping out the community, because they are very much in need,” she said.

That help comes from a collaboration of churches and organizations in the Wasilla area, said Good Shepherd pastor Duane Hanson. Through the Food Bank of Alaska, which received a $100,000 grant from Wal-Mart, Thanksgiving Blessing expanded to the Valley this holiday season. On Saturday, hundreds of families were lined up moving through Good Shepherd to receive enough food for a traditional feast.

The effort “truly is a blessing,” Sample said, who went to pick up food for her daughter, Melissa.

“She mentioned to me that they’re barely making it,” Sample said. “When she sees the food, she’s going to cry. She’s going to be very humbled when I give all this to her.”

Churches regularly take care of families in their congregations, Hanson said, but Valley Thanksgiving Blessing is a way to reach more people.

“This is just terrific,” he said. “There’s a lot of people being served and it’s being done by a whole host of churches and organizations. Churches usually do this, but it’s usually 60 or 70 families at a time — a few do more — but to do more than 1,200 like this is overwhelming.”

It also helps take a little pressure off the Food Bank of Wasilla, which has been distributing food to about 1,000 people a month since June, said Hanson, who has been pastor at Good Shepherd for more than 20 years.

The temperature outside may have been in the low 20s, but inside, the hospitality was warm. Hot coffee and chocolate, along with cookies were handed out by the more than 200 volunteers to help keep people warm.

“It’s just a time of stopping to give thanks, remembering the blessings we have,” Hanson said. “We usually take those things for granted, I think everybody does. Hopefully, this is a time to step back and realize all the blessings we have.”

One Valley resident who doesn’t take Thanksgiving for granted is Dave Edell. He heard about Saturday’s food event at the food bank.

“This means I get to have Thanksgiving,” Edell said. “Without this, I wouldn’t have Thanksgiving this year, to be honest. I certainly appreciate this and I’m sure there are a lot of others who appreciate it much more than I.”

That humble thankfulness is a common reaction, said Taft Tracy, a Wasilla Bible Church member who spent the afternoon handing out frozen turkeys.

“Everyone seems really happy and they really appreciate it,” he said. “I really enjoy it, too. It’s nice to help people out.”

The response was overwhelming, said Harlan Braun, a volunteer and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church member.

“We’ve been working on this for weeks, and it’s been smooth,” he said. “It’s also rather amazing that we could serve 1,250 people or so. You might figure it would almost be impossible to do that in about four hours.”

While Thanksgiving isn’t a religious holiday, giving is a Christian value that should be practiced year-round, Sample said.

“It’s going to draw people closer to what it’s all about,” she said. “This shows love, a lot of love, and that’s what we need.”

Sample’s sister, Maxine Rachow, agrees, chiming in that Thanksgiving should be “about giving, and all about L-O-V-E.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.