Community Thanks November 27, 2016

I am writing to share about the gratitude expressed Nov. 19 at our Sons of Norway Thanksgiving Feast at the Jacklin Cultural & Arts Center where we gathered to share a turkey dinner, bringing items to donate to the food bank, Jingle Books and Toys for Tots. I am grateful for these contributions that will continue at our two December events also. As Cultural Director, I organized our program that day and wish to say thanks to the Coeur d’Alene Press for ideas I encountered in your pages which helped me develop several aspects of our program.

First of all, I read about Jingle Books in The Press last year and we are in our second year of collecting for that. In the Nov. 13 issue, I read about the Grateful Tree and decided we should make one. Everyone got a leaf on which to write and then taped their leaves to the tree. Listed on the leaves were all of the following, some of them, like friends and family,more than once: family, career, good friends, Sons of Norway, Jesus, true love, grandpa, my kids, WSU, Dad, election results, America, health, snow, safe travel, living in Idaho, and last, but not least, shenanigans. Some were by children as young as 7, some by people over 80, and every age in-between.

Karen Lauritzen, a first-grade teacher in Coeur d’Alene, read us “An American Christmas Story” by Erik Rostad, who spent time in the Marines. Published by The Press in December 2014, it describes how Toys for Tots got started by Marines.

A skit was also part of our program. It was based on a Nov. article by Harvey Mackay, whose column appears in The Press every Sunday. It told how in 2005 Martha Cothren removed the desks from her classroom, asked what they could do to earn the right to sit at a desk, and then had them all brought back in by U.S. veterans. Four kids and two veterans participated in this skit which also included words by Army Veteran Charles Province about how soldiers have given us freedoms of the press, speech and demonstrations. Gratitude for our veterans is important at Thanksgiving, as well as on Veterans Day.

Also included in this program was a message from Lodge President Bjorn Handeen who reminded us all to be grateful for both incoming and outgoing lodge officers, involvement by new members, finding a suitable meeting place after the Post Falls IOOF sold their building where we’d met for a decade, and for all dues-paying members who make it possible for our children and grandchildren to learn about Norwegian heritage.

BARBARA ROSTAD

Hauser