Thanksgiving is a time when we can focus on the truly important things in life: spending time with our loved ones and remembering all we have to be grateful for. The First Flight High School men’s basketball team will be spending their time helping those who struggle with putting food on the table by preparing Thanksgiving dinners for them. This will be the sixth year that the team prepares meals.

“This has become a tradition that has grown every year, eventually I would just like to see it turn into a hot buffet line where people just come in on Thanksgiving morning,” head coach Chad Williams said.

The turkeys were donated by Barefoot Bernie’s Tropical Grill & Bar and a member of the local community, Sammie Smith. Within two days of requesting the other food needed for the meals, the FFHS staff had volunteered to provide the rest of the items on the list.

“The support from our staff has been overwhelming. I was getting asked in September if I was going to do the dinners this year,” Williams said.

High Cotton Barbeque  will be cooking turkeys for the families while the rest of the food preparation will be completed by the basketball team and culinary arts students.

“We are a very fortunate community, blessed with a lot of resources,” Williams said. “A majority of the students affiliated with the basketball team at least, come from situations where they don’t have to worry about where their Thanksgiving meal is coming from, and to see them give back to a certain percentage of the population that they aren’t exactly familiar with is something that I think they need to learn how to do.”

On Nov. 26 the basketball team and Culinary Arts classes will begin preparing the Thanksgiving meals. On the morning of Nov. 27 Gail Driver, the mother of a former basketball player, Chris Driver who graduated in 2011, will be delivering the meals to the families.

“Each of the 16 team members will be making a dinner for one family each,” Williams said.

The players are happy to be a part of the tradition.

“I think it’s awesome that we are giving to unprivileged families to make sure they have a meal on Thanksgiving,” senior Remington Coder said. “It also brings the team together a lot.”

The families will receive tickets to a basketball game and a copy of the schedule for the rest of the season. The team wants to do a favor for the community and get people more involved in school events.

Williams contacted the school counselors from a few schools in Dare County and asked if they knew families who were in need of a holiday meal. Every family that was suggested will be given a meal in addition to a list of families from different churches that the Driver family gathered.

“Giving back to the community is the main purpose,” Williams said. “Along with teaching our kids that there is a bigger game that we need to be learning how to play.”

Send comments to johnsonha0323@daretolearn.org