Free dinners show the spirit of community

When a Yuma organizer of free spaghetti dinners announced recently that they would have to be discontinued due to lack of funding, some probably thought that was the end of the story.

But this is Yuma, and it turned out it was far from the final chapter.

In just two days, many generous people stepped forward to donate to the cause - including a large $1,000 donation from local businessman Dick Rautenberg.

The organizer of the dinners, Matt Young, had said he could feed people for 23 weeks with $1,000, but more than that came in so now he is planning to continue the weekly dinners for a year, beginning Nov. 18.

The story behind the dinners is representative of the spirit of Yuma.

The idea came from a suggestion by Monsignor Richard O'Keeffe that something ought to be done to help those who were struggling during these tough economic times.

Young took the idea for the free dinners to the Knights of Columbus, who threw in the necessary money and volunteers to get the dinners going. American Legion Post 56 offered a place for the dinners, and Crossroads Mission also provided food and volunteers.

"The plan was simple: feed as many people as possible for free," said Young.

And that is what they did - hundreds of them a week. Anyone who wanted to eat was fed. No forms to fill out, no qualifying limitations. No, just come and eat.

We aren't sure this kind of thing would even happen in a lot of communities. But here, there seems to be a community spirit that makes this kind of generosity possible on a regular basis.

It's a remarkable thing, and even more so because it involves private voluntary effort. No one went to a government agency and said, "You need to feed people because times are hard." No, they just got together and did it themselves.