In Good Company at Holiday Feasts

In Ojai, they practice the Thanksgiving Day dinner as a community event: Those with empty homes or no homes at all, and those whose families are far away, come by the score to celebrate together at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church.

“My daughter, Anne, is home for the holiday, and she said, ‘Let’s not stay home all day and cook, let’s go to the community dinner,’ ” said Judith Gustafson, 53, an executive with an Ojai environmental group. “This dinner is not just about feeding the needy, it’s about bringing the community together.”

Around Ventura County on a brilliant autumn day, churches and charities opened their hearts and doors to the needy, the elderly and the empty-nesters who either find it hard to provide for themselves or difficult to stay at home alone on a holiday marked by family get-togethers.

In Thousand Oaks at the Hillcrest Royale Retirement Home, for example, about 50 senior citizens shared a common midday meal with friends before retiring to their rooms or going to the homes of nearby relatives.

“I thank the good Lord for being alive and eating the good food we have,” said Mary Esik, 66. “Some of us are disabled. But we get around and we have friends, so we’re very thankful.”

In Ventura, the Salvation Army fed more than 400 people, starting the day by serving hot coffee from the back of a truck to homeless people on the sidewalk at a chilly 10 a.m.

Joyce and Bill Michael, who have spent the last eight years on the Ventura River bottom or living in a 1982 Ford Econoline van, were there from the start. “It’s rough, but you cope with it,” said Joyce Michael, 49, a Ventura resident for two decades.

Making the Salvation Army meal possible were about 35 volunteers.

“We’re cooking and serving and being friendly, warm and loving,” volunteer Ann Reisner said.

Thanksgiving Day meals were served to hundreds more in Oxnard by the Tried Stone Church at the Rescue Mission, by Project Understanding at the National Guard Armory and by the Salvation Army.

If feeding the homeless and the poor was the principal mission Thursday, Ojai’s St. Thomas Aquinas Church provided its own broader definition, drawing participants to its annual dinner from other churches and all segments of the community. Of the 170 who came, perhaps one-third were parishioners.

Gustafson shared the afternoon meal with her daughter and attorney husband, Andy. She brought two large jello salads even though she is not a member of the church.

“You’re usually with your own church or your own strata,” she said. “But here it’s just everyone together.”

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Participants Thursday included Jen Perez, a 29-year-old secretary from Guam, whose two sons and roommate donated a giant turkey to the meal. “We don’t have family here,” she said. “We came to give thanks and to enjoy the company of others.”

Josie Vrgara, 76, a short-story writer and immigrant from Spain, brought a friend from the Whispering Oaks senior citizen complex. “I come every year because I am by myself,” she said.

Nearby, Skip, 44, a Vietnam veteran whose last permanent home was in the Idaho wilderness, hungrily ate his turkey and mashed potatoes while waiting to spend the night in the same center, which along with six other Ojai churches house the homeless at night during the winter.

“Are these people doing it just to do it, or from their heart of hearts?” said the drifter dressed in Army fatigues.

“Our goal,” said Father Jim Retzner, associate pastor at St. Thomas Aquinas, “is to provide a family atmosphere for those who have no family at this time of year.”

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At the Hillcrest Royale home in central Thousand Oaks, where many of the residents have family in Southern California, their Thanksgiving buffet was served early so they could spend the holiday with friends and family.

Some residents spoke of wars and languages, families and food. A few men engaged in the holiday tradition of sneaking out early to watch football on a wide-screen TV.

Lillian Hall, a former restaurant hostess, approved of the spread: crisp white tablecloths, dried purple flowers and apple cider in long-stemmed wine glasses.

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“The food is very, very good,” she said, stabbing a sweet yam with her fork. “But I’m 89 and I don’t have the teeth of a youngster.”

Eating and lightly bickering with her friends--Joan Lott, 65, and Mary Esik--Hall said that living at Hillcrest Royale gave her a feeling of belonging, even on holidays.

“This is like my second home,” she said. “Where else would I go if not for here?”

At a nearby table, former psychologists Irma and Louis Sparer nibbled while waiting to visit their daughter’s family in the area.

Irma, who is in the middle of writing her memoirs (spanning her childhood in Czechoslovakia, marriage in New York City and a shared medical practice in Beverly Hills), said the holiday put her in a reflective mood.

“What I think about the most is that I’m grateful he came home from” World War II, she said. “He was able-bodied and able to function. He had no job, but I had a job. We had family. We made it through.”