Holiday blesses givers and receivers

Thanksgiving celebration includes family, friends, food, and record warmth

Triangle residents celebrated Thanksgiving amid record-setting temperatures Thursday. The mercury in Raleigh reached 77 degrees, breaking the Nov. 22 record of 76 set in 2003, so no one had to bundle up to tend an outdoor turkey fryer.

Other than the springlike temperatures -- which will vanish today, with highs of about 50 predicted -- it was a typical holiday filled with friends, family and, of course, food.

Some, though, had to work up a little appetite first.

At Ridgewood shopping center in Raleigh, more than 1,400 people gathered for the Turkey Trot, an 8 km run (A kilometer equals about five-eights of a mile.) and other events to benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

"I got suckered into it by them," Mark Gottlieb, a Raleigh chiropractor, said jokingly, pointing at his wife, Michele, and colleague Ryan Hamlin.

"This is becoming a Thanksgiving tradition," Michele Gottlieb said.

One of the younger 8 km runners was Tyler Scheviak, 11, of Raleigh, who beat his father, Tom, by about three minutes. They both worked up an appetite.

"We couldn't eat before the race so we're looking forward to getting home and having turkey," Tom said.

At Raleigh's Helping Hand Mission shelter on New Bern Avenue, volunteers and the needy met over mounds of donated clothing.

"We've had three truckloads of clothes," said Director Sylvia Wiggins. Wiggins, an exuberant blur of generosity, had been up late the night before helping make sure hundreds of Thanksgiving dinners were ready.

"This is an earth angel here. This is an earth angel from God," Lawrence Williams said of Wiggins, his arms full of clothes.

Assistant Director Nathan Harley said the shelter had served about 275 meals by noon. The menu included turkey and vegetables, as well as barbecued pigs' feet. "We try and do something that is nontraditional," Harley said.

Ken Evans lives in a nearby rooming house. He's homeless off and on, he said. He picked up a bag of clothes and a blanket, and got dinner to go.

"I'm thankful to be alive," Evans said. "I'm thankful for being here."

Not far away on Wake Forest Road, a church congregation came together for the second year of its new Thanksgiving tradition.

Volunteers from Northside Community Church in Knightdale had cooked hundreds of plates of turkey, vegetables and pie; and Glenn Mitchell, a church member, opened his Circus Family Restaurant to anyone who needed a free meal and some company.

Matthew Lipscomb, who is homeless, read about the dinner and stopped in for a plate. "I have to give thanks. Not only today, every day is a blessed day," he said.

Church member Joe Thomson, who stood by the door and greeted diners, said, "It's a blessing for all of us who have so much to be able to help people who have so little."

When Phyllis Hawes showed up to volunteer at the Durham Rescue Mission's annual Thanksgiving feast, she was first assigned to the serving line. But it was the logistics of getting trays of dressing, turkey, corn and beans onto the line that needed aid.

So Hawes, 50, put on clear plastic gloves, grabbed two red potholders, and "got promoted" to a runner.

"How many turkeys have I carried? Gosh," Hawes said, waiting in the line to get dressing in a makeshift outdoor kitchen. Volunteers prepared 75 turkeys, 350 pounds of dressing, 220 pounds of corn and 450 pounds of green beans.

Hawes was one of 428 volunteers who served 875 hot meals to folks who came out for a traditional meal, free winter clothes, groceries and some games for the children.

For more than an hour, she shuttled between the serving line and the outdoor kitchen, taking orders to bring over whatever was running low.