Thanksgiving Day 2020 in The Mayflower Community was full of appreciation, even with all the struggles of 2020. The highlight was the home-delivered meals to Mayflower residents. Independent living residents ordered 125 specially prepared turkey and ham dinners with all the fixins. Health Center and Beebe Assisted Living residents dined from the same menu.
Food Service Director, Scott Gruhn, reminisced on this his 25th Mayflower Thanksgiving dinner. He recalls the first one he oversaw in 1989 when residents and their guests dined on eight-foot Monroe tables in a space about half the size of the current Buckley Dining Room. Over the years, the space expanded and became grander with carpeting and cherry wood decor.
Scott has served as Mayflower’s Food Service Director, first from 1989 to 1993 and now from 2000 to the present.
This year…Write off the in-person Thanksgiving meal! Out of precaution, no meals were served in the Dining Room.
But, oh the food! The diners’ reports were uniformly favorable. After asking which restaurant prepared the delivered meal and being told that it was the Mayflower Kitchen, one resident observed, “How do they do it?! It was delicious!”
Another resident wrote this thank-you note this morning: “Thank you for the staff’s delicious Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve written Scott, noting Mayflower’s special dinners are ALWAYS special, but am aware that this year dealing with restrictions of the coronavirus, the entire project was extra challenging. And, a special thank-you for all who delivered the dinners. Everything was delicious…..and as a single, I not only enjoyed Thanksgiving Day noon dinner, but also leftovers for supper AND for lunch the following day. I love leftovers, especially food prepared by Scott and his staff.”
Residents John and Dorothy Noer wrote this morning that the dinner was “not surprising, but very delicious. It was tasty and filling. Hot food was hot and cold was cold.” John and Dorothy went on to report, “There were fifteen adults, two preschoolers, and seven dogs at our Thanksgiving get-together on Thursday evening. We ate, conversed, and played games for three hours. It was great to see family we hadn’t been with for quite some time.”
John went on to write (before we could panic about the large crowd in a confined Mayflower space!), “By the way, were in the following locations: Grinnell, Boston, Park Forest IL, Bourbonnais IL, Sullivan MO, Gulf Port MS, and Taiwan. It was a zoom gathering!”
Establishing new routines in this difficult period is critical to staying upbeat!
— Bob Mann, Sales & Marketing Director