HUMBOLDT — Vern Kurth didn’t have a lot of options for Christmas Day.
It was either being alone or accepting the comfort of strangers.
Kurth, 55, lives alone a couple of miles northwest of Elsmore, his home since 1972. He has a sister who lives on the East Coast, some cousins in Missouri.
He took a chance on the Humboldt Senior Center’s annual Christmas Day meal. Turns out, he was among friends.
“I SAW in the newspaper that they were having the Christmas meal here and one at Le Roy,” said Kurth. When he turned up, he knew several others who came to eat, including Gary Harris.
He and Harris are members of the Rev. Kelly Zellner’s Restoration Fellowship Church, which meets next door to the Senior Center at 716 Bridge St.
The Christmas meal was uplifting for those who took advantage, Kurth said, allowing that “things are kind of rough this year and you never know what the new year is going to bring.”
Harris, 52, has lived in Humboldt six years since meeting Zellner, who encouraged him to move here from Howard.
“I worked at different jobs in Howard, in restaurants and a nursing home, before I ended up being disabled,” he said, recalling that his work-a-day life ended when he fell backwards down a flight of stairs.
Now, he spends most of his time in his apartment reading, with his dog, Lucky, lying on his lap.
“I live by myself, don’t have a TV,” Harris said, and with no relatives nearby the community Christmas meal was a pleasant, and tasty, diversion.
After they ate, Harris took Kurth in tow and they went across Bridge Street to look at how an old store building is being remodeled and soon will be the new home of Restoration Fellowship Church.
“It’s good to be with a Christian brother on Christmas,” Kurth said.
JOHN SCOVILL and his extended family began the Christmas Day meals in 2004, when they operated the family style eatery, Bridge Street Station.
The holiday meal is their way of giving “back to the community,” Scovill said late Saturday morning, a few minutes before the first diners started arriving. “The first four years we had it at the restaurant,” he said, which closed in 2007.
Since then the meal has been served at the senior center, except for 2009 when heavy snow canceled it completely.
“It’s a family event,” Scovill added. Daughter Sherryl, 17, a senior at Humboldt High, made all the pies. Also on hand were daughter Michelle, 19, wife Cindy, her mother, Mary Lou Dooley, and in-laws Marilyn, Steven and Robert Dooley.
The meal, which featured ham, turkey and vegetables, is free. Some years donations have turned in $300 to $400. All monies are given to the Humboldt Community Pantry to buy food to help the needy.
“This year a lot of people are going through some tough times,” Scovill noted, “and every year there are people who are alone and need a little help at Christmastime.”
Attendance has been as many as 60. Saturday, 47 came to eat.
Scovill grew up in Iola and graduated from Iola High School in 1980. He has lived in Humboldt since 1993.
After closing the restaurant, he went to work for Broyles Inc., which deals in petroleum marketing equipment. Wife Cindy, a Humboldt native, is site manager at the senior center.
