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Residents and International Students Volunteer for Thanksgiving Feasts

People were giving thanks all over the territory on Thursday by celebrating with family dinners and large banquets hosted for the community.

Nobody goes away hungry from the Penn-Scipio family’s annual feast at Emancipation Garden on St. Thomas. The feast started by Francine Penn-Scipio in 1994 is at the heart of the community Thanksgiving.

Penn-Scipio and dozens friends, a small army of volunteers, serve meal after meal to the islands’ hungry. Mounds of nourishment line the long tables – turkeys, hams, baked chicken, kingfish in sauce, potato stuffing, macaroni and cheese, gravies, broccoli, carrots, beans, salads, soups, noodles await those with a hankering for some turkey. It’s a family tradition.

One volunteer said she cooked about 100 pounds of potatoes. "Until we ran out,” she added.

Students from the Danish Traveling School were among those volunteers Thursday at the feast. "We were so happy to get the Danish students, along with our regulars, Girls on the Go and the Sparks,” Penn-Scipio said, between dishing out deserts with trusty veteran Millicent Duzant.

Danish Traveling School director Claus Marquart, who was busily helping out himself, said he heard about the feast from Sen. Myron Jackson. "We asked him if he knew of anything we could volunteer for and directed us here.”

Marquart is co-owner of Hojskolendk, a private company that runs the traveling school which has been making regular trips from Denmark to the territory since 2010. He says the students take part in seminars from one to three months where they work with local groups, learning team building and project management skills.

In 2012, the students performed a singing carwash at the Fort Christian Parking lot to raise funds for Kidscope, a not-for-profit child-advocacy center. Marquart said they might do another one on this trip, before heading to St. Croix.

"People here are so friendly,” said Danish student volunteer Nicolai Noe, taking a brief break from his cleanup duties. "On the street, everyone says good morning!” he added. It’s Noe’s first visit to American shores.

Another St. Thomas tradition, the Salvation Army was holding forth with its 26th annual Thanksgiving feast, and even a block away, the choir’s voices could be heard welcoming one and all to a warm meal and companionship.

Capt. Daniel Hazeldine, pastor and Salvation Army regional coordinator, was busy cleaning up after serving an army of hungry – and sometimes lonely – folks. Hazeldine, who with his wife Capt. Valerie Hazeldine has been here about three years, talked about the day, the people, and the Army’s mission to preach the gospel and serve human needs.

Those noble goals were met with abundance Thursday in the faces of the folks comfortably enjoying one another over a turkey leg or two. The meal is by no means exclusively for the homeless. Each year there are also lots of folks who are just plain lonesome. One older fellow last year said he could afford to cook himself or go out, but with his spouse passed away "it’s just not the same.”

Answering that need, Daniel Hazeldine said they now incorporate what he calls "floaters.” "Besides servers, these volunteers just circulate among the tables and sit and talk with people. We have lots of volunteers from the Rotary Clubs,” he said. Indeed, several Rotarians were relaxing after the hard work with a meal of their own.

While discussing the local Salvation Army, which started in 1917, he same year the islands were purchased from Denmark by the United States, Hazeldine revealed exciting plans, which, he stressed, are still not solidified. "Since we started that same year, I’d like to see the Salvation Army Danish International Band play at the centennial ceremony in 2017.”

Alas, the Salvation Army’s chief turkey chef George Goodwin, who has manned the tiny kitchen for years, had just finished the day’s duties, but stalwarts Jeni Smith and husband Tom Bolt were still in presence, Smith quietly finishing up in the kitchen, and Tom, not so quietly, leading the choir for the last stragglers.

By Ulla Muller School the Caribe Tradewinds Lodge 589 and Pearls of the V.I. 585 also served their annual bounty of Thanksgiving treats to one and all.

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