Rejoice! members and friends serve up Thanksgiving dinner

(Photo contributed) Wanda Wichers kept busy on kitchen duty slicing turkey for the nearly 500 dinners served Thursday at the Le Mars Eagles Club. [Click to enlarge]

Rejoice! Community Church's fifth annual Thanksgiving dinner was a success.

Close to 500 people enjoyed a turkey and all the traditional trimmings meal from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Eagles Club in Le Mars.

That was significantly more than 360 people served last year.

(Photo contributed) Lance Sitzmann volunteered Thursday to help in the serving and cleanup at the Thanksgiving dinner sponsored by Rejoice! Community Church and the Le Mars Eagles Club. [Click to enlarge]

"It was a great time, everyone seemed to really enjoy it," said Tim DeBoer, a Rejoice! member and organizer.

Of the about 500 people served about 200 of those meals were delivered by 15 to 20 volunteers from Rejoice!, the Eagles Club and other community members, DeBoer said.

"They said 'we weren't doing anything this morning, so we came in to help," he said.

There were also about 25 people working in the kitchen and serving diners at the tables.

Rush hour seemed to be between 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., DeBoer added.

In preparation of the dinner, many volunteers cooked turkeys, baked pies and helped out throughout the week.

The turkeys were deboned Thanksgiving morning, the meat put in roasters and the roasters into ovens, DeBoer said.

The dinner has grown throughout the years.

"The first year we served something like 75 meals," DeBoer said.

The first two years the dinner was held at the Le Mars Knights of Columbus and the last three it's been at the Eagles Club, DeBoer said.

He said after serving the public volunteers ate and reviewed how everything worked with the dinner and they were pleased.

"The volunteers were in very high spirits, very cordial," DeBoer said. "It was a great time."