‘Christmas Friendship Dinner’ needs volunteers

WASILLA — Preparations continued apace this week for the 23rd installment of the Christmas Friendship Dinner.

The annual Wasilla event has exploded in size and popularity, and now stretches beyond the four-hour main event on Christmas Day at the Curtis D Menard Memorial Sports Center, two long-time participants and event chairs said. Nor is the event aimed exclusively at those in need, organizers say. Preparations for this year’s dinner have been underway since at least September.

The event started when now-deceased community pillar Harold Newcomb buttonholed Bob Bowers in his Country Kitchen restaurant about an unexpected turkey surplus, Bowers said.

“He originally was sitting in my restaurant and stopped me one day and he was with the Lions Club and he stopped me and said ‘I got six turkeys donated and I don’t know what to do with them,’” he said.

The two of them cooked up the idea of preparing the turkeys for area seniors. About 50 people showed up to the first dinner, Bowers remembered.

“We put that thing on and it just mushroomed from there,” he said.

Eventually, the event outgrew the Wasilla Senior Center and was relocated to Wasilla High School, but attendance outpaced that venue, too. Last year, between the gathering at the Menard Center and an outreach program, which delivers meals to those unable to attend the main dinner, the organization provided about 4,000 meals to area residents. This year, the figure is expected to reach 4,600 meals, Bowers said.

The outreach program has lead to some poignant moments. One year, a man in Butte asked for 20 dinners to feed visiting family members, because he had no space to cook in his house, Bowers said.

As the event scaled up over the years, some things have proven to be unfeasible, Bowers said.

“When we first started out we would give gifts,” he said. “We would pass out tickets and the people would eat and then wait for their ticket so they could get door prizes, more or less. It got to the point where so many people were done eating and waiting for their prize, we couldn’t serve additional people.”

The dinner is staunchly noncommercial, Bowers said. Even cash donations at the door are refused “to avoid any problems of having anybody walk away feeling like they couldn’t do anything,” he said.

“That was established within the first couple of years,” Judy Bowers added. “All of us agreed that would be something this dinner would always do.”

While the Bowers — who have attended every dinner — were present at the creation, they’re also quick to point out that they don’t take any credit for the event’s organization or execution this year. Numerous community organizations donate, including American Charter Academy School on Pittman Road, Matanuska Telephone Association, the city of Wasilla, the Houston Lions Club and Mat-Su Resource Conservation and Development. Volunteers also contribute long hours to decorate the Menard Center ahead of the group dinner, which also features live music and memorial tables to fallen firefighters and policemen, as well as prisoners of war and missing in action.

“I, my wife, nobody in our nation takes any credit for any of this,” he said. “The credit goes for the volunteers that do the work, the individuals that do the work, that donate things to us.”

There is also a bigger reason for people to come together, they said.

“If we were to say anything about it, it would be that Jesus is the reason for the season,” Bob Bowers added. “We have a big sign up at the Menard Center that says that.”

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com.