ANAVETS coffee club hosts Christmas dinner

Prince Albert’s ANAVETS coffee club has been enjoying cups of coffee while raising money for the clubs annual Christmas dinner.

ANAVETS general manager, Holly Chow said every Monday to Friday since August a group of eight to 10 people would put a toonie in a jar for every cup of Joe they drank. Before they knew it, they were able to fund the meal.

“Right now this little coffee club has paid for all the food and decorations of this whole event,” said Chow.

An afternoon Christmas dinner on Thursday afternoon had around 120 veterans, seniors and council members remembering the war while sharing in a roast beef meal and enjoying music from Paul Lomheim.

Second World War veteran, Edwin Laird said he thinks it’s great the ANAVETS hosted an event like this, to thank veterans.

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“This is the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and it’s pretty wonderful, especially having young people coming up and saying thanks for something we did 70 years ago, that’s terrific,” he said.

This meal has been hosted for around 30 years now and Chow said they will continue to host it.

“For us it’s very important to make sure that all the veterans, of any of the wars, are enjoying Christmas as much as everybody else,” said Chow. “I can do without Christmas just to have this day.”

However, this dinner is for more than just veterans. The club also invites seniors from care homes in the area and from Kinistino to join in the festivities.

“I know it’s important for them, but it’s even more important for us because that’s part of our mandate is to service these seniors and make sure that they’re happy and to see them smile, it’s amazing,” she said.

Laird said the Christmas dinner that the volunteers cook is even better than his family’s Christmas meals used to be.

“It wasn’t this fancy, but we always had more than enough to eat, it was always good,” he said.

ANAVETS renovations

Chow was excited to reveal that the ANAVETS club has received a grant from Community Futures and they will be upgrading the entire kitchen in the New Year.

“The club has the most incredible, faithful, four volunteers in that kitchen … and they cook just about every meal in this club,” she said.

These upgrades should help these volunteer cooks immensely, said Chow.

“We’re going to have all new grills, ovens, deep fryers, countertops, linoleum in the kitchen and we’ll start those renovations in January when it slows down a bit, but I’m so happy for our volunteers,” she said.

paNOW will have more details about the renovations as they become available.

kbruch@panow.com

On Twitter:@princealbertnow