Generous spirit, ample helpings

Travelers through Clark Fork, Idaho, last Thanksgiving were in for a surprise at Maureen “Sissy” Snider’s old restaurant, the Cabinet Mountain Bar and Grill.

Some who stopped in for a bite that day didn’t know that Snider had opened the place up to any and all who were hungry and needed a place to go.

“They were thrilled to death when they got to have a regular, true Thanksgiving dinner, free,” Snider said.

It’s as common a holiday story as the pilgrims’ voyage on the Mayflower, and it’s happening all over North Idaho again this Thanksgiving: Generous and filled with holiday spirit, a group of volunteers spends the day preparing and serving food to the less fortunate.

Though Snider doesn’t own the restaurant in Clark Fork anymore, she and other volunteers will serve free Thanksgiving dinners at the Clark Fork Senior Center. Deliveries are available for anyone stuck at home.

“There’s always so many people that don’t have a place to go for Thanksgiving or don’t want to be alone,” Snider said.

All the food they’ll serve, including four 20-pound turkeys, has been donated.

In Coeur d’Alene, the Center of Light Church is hosting a similar dinner at the Lake City Senior Center.

“We’ve been working on this for about a month now, trying to get all kinds of donations,” said Evalyn Coutts, a church volunteer.

Coutts said the group served more than 500 meals last Thanksgiving, including deliveries to the homebound hungry.

“We almost ran out of pies last year,” she said. “We had to start cutting smaller pieces.”

Grocery stores in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls have donated to the dinner. This will be the church’s ninth annual free dinner.

Everyone involved in the free dinners agrees the responses from the people who show up make it all worthwhile.

A woman from Hope, about 10 miles from Clark Fork, sent Snider a thank-you card after last year’s dinner. In her 90s, the woman had no family in the area and lived alone.

“She’d send me this card and thank me for including Hope in our dinner,” Snider said. “It just made her day.”