San Diego Mesa College hosted their second Thanksgiving dinner for students unable to go home to their families, or prepare food for themselves, on Thursday Nov. 24. After taking a year off and not hosting a Thanksgiving dinner since 2013, this year’s dinner hosted around seventy-five students, more than the previous dinner, and entertained its guests with food, games, live music, live speakers, and raffles.
In charge of this event was Dean of Students, Ashanti Hands, along with Mesa College’s Associated Student Government. Hands explains, “The dinners are helped planned with assistance from the HOST program, which is usually for the homeless and hungry students at Mesa College.” Thanks to the help from the HOST program, these dinners are able to assist people in need, that could not prepare their own meals, as well as students who were not able to go home to their families during this holiday season.
Entertainment for the dinner included two live musical performances from Mesa students, as well as the campus’ own improv club. “The improv team was awesome,” Hands goes on to say. Other activities at the event included a raffle for the attendees, and students taking the opportunity to speak in front of the room and say what they are thankful for, including the opportunity to attend Mesa College.
This experience was also able to leave its attendees with positive thoughts to take away for what Thanksgiving really means to them. “The best part was the unity and coming together and introducing yourselves to people you don’t know. It’s more than food and a free meal, its meeting others,” student Derek Cohen states. Other students were also able to take away this idea and see that the sense of community was what they cared about.
Overall, Mesa College was able to reach out to a larger number of people this Thanksgiving season, and help them celebrate a sense of coming together and community, and make a step toward an even more unified campus. For next season, the ASG and HOST programs are hoping to get many more students involved in this dinner, and develop an even stronger sense of a college family here on campus.