On November 20th everyone in the WMS community came together to celebrate Thanksgiving, and it was a huge success!

Almost twenty teachers showed up to help this wonderful cause. Mrs. Maneri, the band teacher, said this was her fourth year volunteering for his event. She decided to help because it was a “fun night to meet people”.

For the two hours that people ate, WMS chefs served the food. The head chef named Karen Malyar said that she thought that the Thanksgiving Dinner turned out “fine” and that she had been volunteering for this event for eight years, which is almost a decade. She was the person in charge of all the other chefs during the Thanksgiving Dinner.  That’s a long time to volunteer for this event and WMS faculty and staff appreciate the commitment to helping other people and building community.

There were also many students of WMS that wanted to help their school achieve the goal of a positive community including Ashley Vincent. Vincent stated, “I decided to help today because I wanted to see the students of WMS out of the school environment.” One parent commented on how good the food was, saying, “Leftovers are for losers!” as a joke.

Mrs. Steinberg, WMS 6th-grade history teacher, was one of the people in charge of this event. Steinberg stated, “I think the families showed up to celebrate as a family more than coming for free food; that they came to stop all the craziness of the holidays for one night.”

Mr.Murphy, who was Mrs. Steinberg’s “partner in crime” for this event was also there. Murphy thought that it was a “combination of both wanting free food and celebrating as a family”, and that’s why people came.

Even Mayor McCormac and the Board of Education committee attended the event. Mayor McCormac commented, “Thanksgiving brings people together as one unit and it is a very important holiday.” There was a lot of things to eat at the dinner. Mayor McCormac noted “ My favorite thing of all time to eat on Thanksgiving has to be my mother’s turnips!”

Board of Education President, Jonathan Triebwasser stated, “Thanksgiving is important, as important as looking out for one another because we are getting further from each other every day. It is important that we keep this tradition alive.”  

Even though many people believe that Thanksgiving is one of our most important holidays, one former student says otherwise. Leah Pinto, sister of 8th grader Vanessa Pinto said,  “I actually think that Thanksgiving is a useless holiday and we should get rid of it. Thanksgiving is just having a big dinner, which you can have on any other normal day!”

There are millions of people around the world who have different opinions about Thanksgiving. Either way, Thanksgiving is about gathering together as a community and as a family and for talking about what you are thankful for. The Thanksgiving Dinner WMS held did exactly that.