In less than an hour, all but a couple dozen free turkeys were gobbled up at Bethel's Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 10041. Five hundred of the birds were flown in via bypass mail to be distributed throughout the community on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
VFW Auxiliary member Zuly Pitre attended to some of the last vehicles to trickle into the parking lot.
"Two families? Okay, let's get you another turkey," Pitre quickly coordinated.
It's the second year that the VFW Auxiliary has partnered with Bethel Community Services Foundation (BCSF) to secure the mass turkey shipment from the Food Bank of Alaska. This year, with hundreds of people displaced by ex-typhoon Halong in Bethel, the spirit of giving has been going strong for weeks.
Pitre said that the turkeys are going all over – a dozen were cooked up the day before for the longstanding supper event hosted by the Evangelical Covenant Church.
More were headed to Bethel's Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center. On Nov. 24, a community potluck brought together ex-typhoon Halong evacuees, volunteers, and host families. Volunteers cooked two of the community distribution turkeys, along with three others donated by the city.
On a robust buffet table, the carved poultry sat next to Native foods such as akutaq, salmon spread, and dried fish.
Clifford Jimmie, who lives in Bethel, sat at a table with his family.
"I'm having dried pike, they are very good. And seal oil. Especially with seal oil," Jimmie said.
Recently, Jimmie's house got a lot fuller when he took in evacuated relatives from Kwigillingok, a community among the hardest-hit by the ex-typhoon Halong. He said that it's been good to have a moment to gather with other affected families.
"It's good to see everyone at one place at one time," Jimmie said.
Organizers said that feeling of coming together sparked the community Thanksgiving event. Kimberly Mute is with the Association of Village Council Presidents, which coordinated the event with help from the Kuskokwim Consortium Library and the City of Bethel.
"People are very connected to each other, you know, through marriage or through, there's so much extended family," Mute said. "And just like myself, I have family that, you know, were impacted, and so just giving them that space to connect with each other and to get together, and will help them to process what that they were going through."
Mute said the turnout of evacuees and host families was "amazing." Lines for food wrapped across the room and organizers set up additional tables for families to feast.
Organizers also ran a corn hole game and a Thanksgiving craft for children. Organizations with services available to evacuees, like the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and the Alaska Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, set up booths to connect with evacuees.
After the Thanksgiving meal, families began to filter out. But for those that remained, the cultural center became a kind of family living room.
Families shifted chairs in clusters and sat along the floor in the cadence of what often follows a holiday meal — relaxing with a full belly in the company of loved ones.
Rather than watching football or a movie after dinner, attendees of the community Thanksgiving watched yuraq and drumming.
"I feel like dancing brings about a lot of healing too," Mute said. "Even the music and laughter."
Elders, toddlers, and the many in-between watched the performance in the company of their neighbors.
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