Dinner for 196 hungry sailors? No sweat at Villa Park VFW

You couldn't take step inside the Villa Park VFW Post 2801 Thursday without bumping into a young Navy recruit. On Thanksgiving, Post Cmdr. Dennis Geiseman would have it no other way.

Typically the post hosts 46 recruits from the Great Lakes Naval Station for Thanksgiving but a shortage of hosts this year left a bunch of recruits without a place to eat Thanksgiving dinner. So Geiseman and the community gathered their resources to feed and entertain 196 recruits.

“We were planning on about 150 but we got there to pick them up and there were 46 more without a place to go so we threw them on the bus too. It was a cozy ride,” Geiseman said. “Our whole goal is to create a dinner and atmosphere that makes these men and women feel like they have a family to eat with on the holiday.”

With the Post equipped with the latest video games, computers and telephones for the recruits to call home, several said the post went above and beyond.

“Man, they did a great job. We thought we would get a good meal but we never expected this,” said Tampa Bay, Fla., native Terrell Newton as he loaded up on dessert and watched football with fellow recruit Dillon Jones. “I know it's cheesy to say it's family since a lot of us don't know each other, but today, that's what it is.”

This year, Great Lakes happens to have 1,250 recruits in boot camp during Thanksgiving week, a bigger number than in previous years. The Villa Park VFW and Gurnee Community Church in Gurnee hosted the largest gatherings.

The recruits who celebrated Thanksgiving in Villa Park are in their final week of boot camp.

Aaron Kirk, of Antwerp, N.Y., called the Post's efforts “the best of both worlds.”

“I just used a guy's cell phone to call my family at their Thanksgiving dinner in New York and they all passed the phone and said hello,” Kirk said, “Now I get to chow on some turkey and watch football.”

From big supermarket chains to the mom-and-pop businesses in town, the community's response to the large number of recruits has been overwhelming, Geiseman said.

Corner Bakery in Oak Brook provided 40 pounds of bread, 300 dinner rolls and all the salad, dressing, carrots and beans for 200.

Maggiano's Little Italy, also in Oak Brook, cooked 100 pounds of turkey breast and 200 pounds of mashed potatoes. The chef also agreed to cook another 25 turkeys donated by VFW members. And dozens of other donors chipped in.

“These young men and women may have never heard of Villa Park or Oak Brook in their lives but when they get back on the bus at 6:30 to head to base, they'll do so knowing this is another community supporting them,” Geiseman said. “They know these 100 volunteers and thousands of others here care.”