They all pitch in to make a meal and give thanks to each and all

By BILL CHAISSON
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CLAREMONT — When you walk into the Bluff Elementary School on the day before Thanksgiving break, the first thing you notice is the smell of turkey roasting. It is everywhere you go. 

It is everywhere you go because they are roasting turkeys in classrooms all over the school. “They’re self-contained roasting pans,” said third grade teacher Debbie Bates. “The teachers buy the turkeys. The cafeteria buys the vegetables, but the kids snip the beans.” 

The students do the bean snipping and the potato peeling the day before the big event. There are about 190 students in grades kindergarten through fifth at the school and 45 staff members. Many hands make quick work.

The work on the wall decorations and the placemats began even earlier. “I think they started on the placemats in October,” said Debra Spencer, the school nurse.

The night before the celebration the teachers stayed after school to hang the last of the decorations.

At 12:30 p.m. the students begin to file into the gymnasium/cafeteria and find their seats. There are  five tables that stretch the length of the room, but there are no assigned seats. Anyone is allowed to sit where they like. 

“That way they can sit with their siblings and their friends and neighbors,” said one of the parents who was there to help serve.

In addition to serving, the parents (most of them members of the PTO) have also made all the desserts, which means pie.  “You can make anything you want,” said one of the parents, “but mostly we stick with pumpkin and chocolate.”

When all the children are seated, Principal Dale Chenette give a very short speech about the importance of giving, emphasizing that everyone should keep it mind all through the year, not just between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

He then introduced teacher Katie Wheeler, who called up a chorus of students to the front of the room and performed “The Thanksgiving Song,” getting some participation from the audience, while her chorus also acted out the words with their hands in what looked like American Sign Language.

There were serving tables in the four corners of the cafeteria and Chenette read out a (to this reporter) very complicated list of which classrooms should go where, which did not seem to baffle these elementary school students in the least.

One remarkable aspect of the event was its quietness, its orderliness, and its general good cheer. It seemed that involving the children in the preparation of the meal gave them an ownership that made them eager to respect the proceedings.

Whose idea was this anyway? Fourth grade teacher Zina Jones cannot remember when she came up with it. “I’ve been here 19 years,” she said, “and we have been doing it for more than 10 years, I’d say.

“It’s an amazing time of the year,” Jones said. “Everyone comes together.”