Capital Region residents have been taking part in the annual Equinox Thanksgiving Day Community Dinner since 1969. But Equinox will not be delivering holiday meals this year — so others are stepping in to fill the void.
The first dinner came about when Equinox staff and some volunteers cooked dinner to serve to folks left stranded by a major snowstorm that hit the week of Thanksgiving. For its 54th incarnation, officials say they're bringing the gathering back to its roots as a sit-down feast at First Presbyterian Church in Albany.
Equinox Chief Development Officer Christina Rajotte says the pivot began during the pandemic. "Unfortunately, you know, with the new norm and the way things are, we knew that we would never be able to go back to doing preparation of 10,000 meals at the Empire State Plaza," Rajotte said. "And gathering that many people wouldn’t be consistent to the way things are changing right now. But we knew that we could at least do the meal at the church."
Rajotte says thankfully several other entities have come forward to help prepare and distribute thousands of meals. Among them: the Albany County Sheriff and the city of Watervliet, where Charles Patricelli is mayor.
“We got caught by surprise by, like so many other people," said Patricelli. "And, you know, we always say, if you're given a lemon, you make lemonade. So we looked at it and said, ‘We can do this,’ it might be a little bit tough, and thinking about it, but you know, we're going to try it. I didn't want to see anybody, you know, going without a Thanksgiving dinner, because I know, we've delivered so many of them in the past, and people really liked them and appreciate them.“
Patricelli recruited six restaurants to donate more than 350 meals. "Right now we're just preparing all the menus and stuff, you know, the ingredients, and then the restaurants will start cooking on Tuesday, Wednesday, and then Wednesday afternoon, around two o'clock we're going to gather all the restaurants' meals that they've cooked and deliver them. Volunteers will meet up at the senior center and then we'll deliver them to their homes from 2 o'clock until they're done,” Patricelli said.
Rajotte says this year's Equinox dinner will also be served on Wednesday, November 22nd.
"The reason why we're doing the day before Thanksgiving is to prepare. We're preparing a minimum of 500 meals. So we're doing four different feedings, two to three, three to four, four to five and five to six. And that gives us time we can accommodate about 125 people per feeding and what's really nice, having time in between so we can, you know, clean off tables, put fresh linens on, and it's really like being coming to a restaurant we're gonna have maître d's, we're gonna have people, hostesses greeting our guests, and seating them, and volunteers are going to help serve the food as well," said Rajotte.
Rajotte says an additional 500 meals or more will be available via take-out. Details are still being ironed out.
