Jimenez dinner returns with ‘the spirit of San Antonio’
Holiday meal an in-person event again after COVID-19 forced changes
It may have been dreary and foggy outside, but warm feelings and smiles filled the Convention Center downtown as the 43rd annual Raul Jimenez Thanksgiving Dinner got underway Thursday.
The beloved, sprawling event was back for the first time since 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic forced organizers to pivot to home deliveries in 2020 and 2021.
About 4,000 home deliveries still went out Thursday, said Jessica Jimenez, the volunteer coordinator and the granddaughter of the dinner’s founder, the late restaurateur Raul Jimenez. But an estimated 25,000 people flooded into the city-owned Convention Center for hot Thanksgiving meals, free of charge.
“We were dying to get back to the people and be with the community and be in-person again,” Jimenez said just as volunteers began carrying the first trays of food out to the guests waiting at long tables.
Raul Jimenez established the first community dinner in 1979 to cheer senior citizens
who were alone and couldn’t afford Thanksgiving meals. Since then, the tradition has ballooned into a massive and beloved community event that many people, such as Scott Doughty, look forward to every year.
“I can’t cook,” the senior said with a laugh as he made his way to a seat at one of the tables, with the assistance of his walker. “I’m so grateful for this. It’s a privilege, and you don’t see stuff like this much anymore.”
Doughty said he heard about the event a few years ago, when he got a pamphlet from one of the homeless shelters he goes to for meals.
Others, such as Chelsea
Wager and her 8-year-old son Wesley and 9-year-old daughter Angelic, have made their own family tradition out of the Jimenez dinner. The family first came to the event several years ago after escaping from a domestic violence situation in Florida. They’d relocated to San Antonio and didn’t know anyone.
Since then, they’ve made friends at the dinner whom they’ve gotten to know over the years — minus the past two. Wager said she enjoys chatting with her old friends and seeing how far each of them has come.
“We went from a domestic violence shelter to a two-bedroom, rent-toown house, and we get to watch each other grow and become who we were meant to be,” Wager said
as her children colored on coloring mats at the table.
Jimenez said putting on the event is a yearlong production that culminates in the daylong Thanksgiving feast where volunteers serve piping hot plates of food to anyone who walks through the Convention Center doors.
More than 4,000 volunteers staff the event annually, serving up to 9,400 pounds of turkey, 6,250 pounds of stuffing, 4,688
pounds of cranberry sauce and 3,000 pumpkin pies. The dinner also includes Turkey Day staples such as green beans, gravy, yams and bread.
“It’s definitely a huge endeavor,” Jimenez said, adding that each year brings different challenges, be it COVID or inflation. “We try to refine and become more efficient every year, and we try to bring a new flair to it each time.”
Mayor Ron Nirenberg was on hand Thursday and gave a quick speech on the stage before suiting up in a plastic apron and handing out meals to people waiting at tables.
The mayor said the 43year tradition “has been undeterred through a global pandemic, economic downturns and all kinds of adversity” and that he was glad to see it back in action in person.
“This is really the spirit
of San Antonio,” he said. “The community comes together, thousands of volunteers serve neighbors in need. There’s nothing better for the holidays.”
