The Prairie Smoke Country Kitchen brought Christmas cheer to Cochrane Dec. 23 with a Christmas dinner for families and individuals who may not have the opportunity to have their own this year.
“It was an extremely generous thing for Prairie Smoke to do,” said Annemarie Tocher, coordinator at the Rocky View Family and Community Resource Centre.
The resource centre is partnered with Cochrane Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) to ‘provide local and regional resource information, referrals and in-home support services to families and individuals within Rocky View County.’
“I am constantly amazed at how generous this community is and this event was an example of that,” Tocher said.
Tocher said Prairie Smoke Country Kitchen approached FCSS with the idea of the event. She said FCSS’s role was to identify individuals and families through their resource centre who might be interested in the Christmas dinner and then provided tickets to individuals and families, with about 70 people attending in total.
Connie Elliott is the owner of Prairie Smoke Country Kitchen and said she wanted a way to give back and support the community.
“Everyone was really happy and left with a smile on their face,” she said of the event. “I feel really good about it.”
The meal consisted of a full turkey dinner with all of the fixings, a starter and dessert.
Elliott also mentioned that there were a couple of special guests at the dinner, including Santa Claus, who handed out gifts to the children, and Rob Cote of the 2014 Grey Cup Champion Calgary Stampeders, who is from Cochrane.
“It was awesome having him here,” said Elliott, adding that all of the kid’s eyes lit up when he stopped by.
Elliott said the support they had for the event was overwhelming, with local businesses donating food and gifts and a lot of volunteers, including current and former staff of the Prairie Smoke Country Kitchen as well as members for the community.
This was the first time the event was held, but Elliott said she would love to have it become an annual event in Cochrane.
