INNISFAIL - By the time the doors opened at the Innisfail Royal Canadian Legion for the third annual Johns Manville Christmas Dinner organizers were more than pleasantly surprised.
"At 4:30 p.m. the lineup to start was 120 people," said Cathy Ouellette, the director of human resources, of the Dec. 19 event.
And when the final counting was made, a total of 650 people had been served with a full course turkey dinner. The event generated $2,430 in ticket sales, monies that went to the Innisfail Christmas Bureau and Innisfail and District Food Bank. As well, a full truckload of 585 pounds of donated food was collected, which will also go to the less fortunate during the holiday season.
The annual Christmas idea for the community came from the employees, who prior to three years ago, received a free turkey from the company at Christmastime but many donated them to the less fortunate. However, it was then decided by everyone at the plant it would be better if they cooked the turkeys, prepared a meal and fed the community.
"We wanted to give to the people of town who needed a meal but then out of that grew the idea of let's just make it a community event," said Ouellette. "Whether people could afford to come or they couldn't, it is not about the money it is about the community spirit."
She said organizers either gave tickets away or asked for $10 a single ticket or $20 a family, or a donation to the Innisfail and District Food Bank.
In the first year of the Johns Manville Christmas Dinner about 200 citizens attended, while last year it doubled to 400, which made the company decide to leave their own quarters for the legion as it had more room to accommodate the growing number of citizens who did not want to miss the event.
In the meantime, just about every one of the 200 employees at the plant, which has been in Innisfail for the past 41 years, helped out in some way, whether by donating food to the Christmas dinner or their time, said Ouellette, adding more than 40 employees came to the dinner to help out, either by cooking, serving or cleaning up.
"Their families are here helping out as well, so it is really truly a JM affair. It is a great time. Everybody is in the spirit of giving," said Ouellette. She said that spirit of giving had taken off to influence others in the community to help, noting Day Dental donated dental items for the kids, while the Innisfail Public Library donated books for children, and students and staff at Innisfail High School also came to help out.
"A lot of people participate to make this happen and it just got bigger each year. The community of course responded well," said Ouellette, noting it has also had an "amazing" ongoing response with everyone at the plant as well. "I think the best part is actually seeing everybody at the plant work together for a common cause.
"You see people who don't normally work together at the plant, like maintenance, production and shipping, and they are all working side by side with the managers, employees working together for a common purpose," she added. "The spirit of giving really shines a light in people, right? They really like to give and you see good humour. You can definitely see the camaraderie and teamwork together, and you can't beat that."
