American Legion volunteers deliver holiday meals to area seniors

The menu prepared for the Christmas and Thanksgiving meals reveals the extent Fallon’s American Legion’s Fred W. Anderson Post 16 reaches out to the community.

Working in conjunction with the Churchill County Senior Center’s Meals on Wheels program, the post and its volunteers will prepare, package and deliver more than 100 meals.

In a few weeks, many of those same volunteers will deliver Christmas meals to more than 100 seniors who live throughout the western part of Churchill County. On the two major holidays, the senior center gives its staff including the drivers the days off for them to enjoy with their family, and the American Legion steps in like they have for almost four decades.

At the end of November, the civilian and military volunteers from the delivered 135 meals, but the time in preparing the meals begins days before the holidays.

Lead chef Alex Riddle said he began buying and preparing 24 turkeys before Thanksgiving. In addition to the turkeys, Riddle and his assistant cooks prepared six pounds of beans and just as many pounds of corn and baked 135 loaves of bread. That total doesn’t include the carrots and other items that make the meals worth savoring.

“I enjoy this so much,” Riddle said of his volunteer work for the American Legion and working with other like-minded individuals in the kitchen. “They make my job so much easier.”

Paul “Pip” Valentin, who became the director of the outreach program several years ago, said Riddle spent four consecutive days cooking turkeys and preparing side dishes.

Looking around the post’s dining room before the volunteer packaged the meals, Valentin thanked the scores of volunteers who were participating.

“One year we had only 17 volunteers. Now look at us,” said Valentin, who served in the Marines.

More than 50 volunteers standing shoulder to shoulder responded with thunderous applause.

Valentin gave out instructions for packaging the meals, and after the volunteers completed the task, he then gave the drivers a list of people and their addresses who were receiving the meals.

Later in the morning, the American Legion opened its doors for the community to come in and have a free Thanksgiving dinner.

Julie King, a retired English instructor at Western Nevada College, is an Army veteran who served as a combat medic from 1974-78. She spent most of her time in Colorado at Fort Carson.

“I’m military and service oriented,” said King, who has lived in Fallon for 34 years and has been an American Legion member for 25 years. “I’m giving back. That is part of the military.”

Navy corpsman HM2 Jackson Ames of Galveston, Texas, said he volunteered because it’s the right thing to do. Afterward, though, he sat down to watch his beloved Dallas Cowboys in the traditional Thanksgiving football game.

Another volunteer, Kim Farrell of Fallon, volunteered for the first time.

“It’s one time I decided not to cook for the families,” she said. “They are all going to do their own cooking with their families.”

Farrell is no stranger, though, to the post. She volunteers to deliver meals on Friday nights and said it’s something she enjoys.

“For me, it (volunteering) feels good in my heart,” she said.