ANDERSON — Marlin Braxton was grateful Thursday that his grandfather had helped start Anderson’s Community Thanksgiving Dinner 27 years ago. Without it, Braxton might have been on his own for Thanksgiving.
“It’s a blessed thing,” he said. “I wish it was every day, especially in this time. It really is a blessing for people who are less fortunate.”
Braxton said since his grandfather, the Rev. Levert Braxton, died 10 years ago, the family hadn’t had large Thanksgiving meals, prompting him to eat at the community dinner at the Geater Center on Thursday.
“It seems less crowded (this year),” he said. “You have a lot of people who are ashamed to come down here, but if you don’t got nothing, why not?”
The Geater Center dinner served 1,015 people Thursday, including those who dined there, carried out their food or had their meals delivered, dinner organizer James Warner Sr. said. Warner was one of the dinner’s founders.
Last year, the dinner served 1,480 people, and Warner said the reason for the decrease likely was that other places had started having their own community dinners.
“Lots of other places is doing it now,” he said. “That’s the biggest reason, and that’s good. I don’t want to cut back because the last thing I want is for people to walk up and me to tell them I have no food.”
Warner and his group of volunteers served people past 3 p.m. Thursday, the time the dinner was supposed to end. The fellowship of those at the dinner is what makes it worth it for many of the volunteers each year.
“It means a lot to me just to come down here with fellowship and great people, to meet people,” said Warner’s brother, Fred Warner, who directed people where to wait for their dinners. “There’s a big need here in Anderson. A lot of them just don’t have anyone else. They don’t have the funds. A lot of people don’t have homes to even go to.”
Braxton said his grandfather would have been proud to see Thursday’s dinner.
“He’d love it,” he said. “He was a giving person, took care of the family. It ain’t been the same without him.”
The Rev. Levert Braxton was one of six people memorialized at the dinner, including Booker Alexander, Charles Gardner, Bernice Brooks, George McCown and Jim Rozier.
Anderson resident Emma Buckley said the dinner allowed her to have Thanksgiving dinner in good company.
“It’s a blessing from God,” she said. “A lot of people don’t have nothing, and these people are blessing us. I would have had (a Thanksgiving dinner), but it’s only me. We don’t have that many family.”
Nearby, Anderson resident Thomas Young laughed. “I would have went to somebody’s house and ate up their food,” he said.
Grant Siler, who was waiting for his dinner to be ready for carry-out Thursday, said he had to fend for himself on Thanksgiving.
“It was a bad time for me,” he said. “I’m just thankful to be alive. There’s other things that are important for the community to come together like this.”
Marilyn Goree spent Thursday loading boxes for the meal deliverers to take to the sick and home-bound.
“There’s a lot of people out of work and the economy’s down,” she said. “There’s a lot of folks that we need to feed, and I’m blessed that we can make it another year.”
The volunteers look forward to the dinner every year, Warner said.
“They enjoy it about as much as I do,” he said. “I tell them it’s a reunion.”
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Geater Center serves up fellowship
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