Tag: thanksgiving

Annual Hall-Wide Event Offers Food and Fellowship to Gillette Hall Residents and Alumni

Houghton College’s Gillette Hall has been through several transformations over the years. It began as East Hall, with only one third of its current structure, before undergoing additions to the building, a name change, and numerous small changes. Yet the largest dorm on Houghton’s campus has held on to two traditions, which Gillette Resident Director (RD) Laura Cunningham calls “the pillars of Gillette.” These are Gillette Thanksgiving and the Gillette banquet, which in Cunningham’s words, are “the two Gillette institutions you don’t mess with.” The month of November brings another Gillette Thanksgiving, a decades-long tradition, set to take place on November 19.

Gillette Thanksgiving, set in the spacious main lounge of the dorm, brings a Thanksgiving feast to 150 of Gillette’s residents through the combined efforts of the RD and Assistant Resident Director (ARD), Resident Assistants (RAs), and Sodexo. Traditionally, other guests have been invited as well, ARD Rebecca Firstbrook ’18 explained. “We get to invite Gillette alumni to it. We invite the other RDs and some faculty members who were Gillette or East Hall residents.” She noted college president, Shirley Mullen, and First Gentleman, Paul Mills, were also invited to the event, although they are unable to attend this year.

This year will be Firstbrook’s third year attending Gillette Thanksgiving, having attended as a resident her first year and as an RA her second year. As ARD, she will work with Cunningham to organize the logistics of the event, including contacting Sodexo for food and ingredients, while Gillette’s team of RAs will prepare the dishes to serve the residents.

“It’s an opportunity for RAs to make food that their moms would have made,” Cunningham said. She noted that many RAs provide recipes from home for their dishes, which is “a good conversation starter.” She herself experienced making cranberry sauce for the first time the first year she served as RD. “I actually liked it,” she said, explaining that since they had the canned jellied sauce at home, she had never liked it before. Cunningham has made it for Gillette Thanksgiving every year since.

Firstbrook appreciates Gillette Thanksgiving as a time of togetherness both in the preparation and the meal itself. “Each of us needs the other to make it happen,” she said of the team that prepares the event. Having experienced the event from the student, RA, and ARD perspectives, she noted the value for students, who “can receive,” and for RAs, “who can serve them.” The attendees are also able to contribute in their own ways, since they provide their own place settings. “It’s fun,” Cunningham said. “People bring their own mugs, and you find out what everyone’s favorite mug is.”

Rene Stempert, Lead Custodian of Gillette Hall, and a long-time presence at Houghton, noted the abiding presence of Gillette’s Thanksgiving tradition. “It was already a tradition when I came twenty years ago,” she said, and noted it has continued “because it involves food and fun and friends.” She echoed Cunningham, who described the event as a celebration with the “Gillette family,” and stated, “they’re family times.”

This event is especially valuable for students who are unable to go home for Thanksgiving Day. Houghton alumnus Carol Zimmerman ’62 remembered having only the day of Thanksgiving off, which made traveling home difficult. When you couldn’t go home “you went home with friends,” she said. The introduction of a feast for East Hall residents brought a family-like Thanksgiving meal for those who could not be with their families, and the tradition endures. Cunningham noted it as one of the “few times a good majority of Gillette residents are together.”

“A lot of students don’t think much of it when they go,” Firstbrook acknowledged. However, she hinted at the importance of the event, which has lasted through several decades, and added,  “it’s a nice benchmark to look back on.”