Happy Thanksgiving To All From Roosevelt Island, RIDA Thankful For Help Feeding Community During Covid 19 Pandemic - Holiday Tradition Continues With Arlo Gurthrie's Alice's Restaurant

Happy Roosevelt Island Thanksgiving Day wishes to everyone. 

I hope you all have the best Thanksgiving possible under the present Covid 19 Pandemic circumstances and that Thanksgiving next year will be more normal. 

Since Thanksgiving is still a day all about about Tradition, here is my traditional Thanksgiving Day post started in 2007:

... listening to Arlo Guthrie's rendition of Alice's Restaurant on WNEW-FM was, for me, a wonderful Thanksgiving tradition.

A former station DJ remembers Thanksgiving and Arlo Guthrie this way on the blog All Mixed Up Radio.

Every year a couple of days before Thanksgiving, it starts. It's slow at first, and then turns into a non-stop avalanche of phone calls. And no matter how many times a station runs promo announcements telling people exactly when it will be played, the calls still come.

"What time are you playing 'Alice's Restaurant?'"...

Yes, in the olden days people used to listen to music on the radio. Imagine that!...

Here's Arlo Guthrie singing Alice's Restaurant with scenes from the movie.

Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" Thanksgiving classic germinated from this incident. Here, as reported out by the @BerkshireEagle newspaper: pic.twitter.com/6TNJO2aSpO

— Joe Mahoney (@TipMahoney) November 25, 2020

Roosevelt Island Disabled Association (RIDA) President Wendy Hersh has a Thanksgiving message to our community:

Thanksgiving is a season of gratitude. Celebrating this Thanksgiving this year in the midst of a pandemic is very stressful having to be away from people that you’d normally draw close to. 

But as much as this year has been the worst, it’s also shown us how we as humans can be a lot better when we actually try. These past months have been rough and chaotic, but we have gotten through it together and have so much to be thankful for. 

We at the Roosevelt Island Disabled Association would like to take time today on Thanksgiving, to thank everyone who has supported us through this pandemic for the last 8 months. From our daily meal deliveries 6 days a week to Grocery bags and emergency boxes to our now ongoing pantry....we couldn't have done it without the help of so many. 

From Doryne Isley of C & C Management who continuously supported us and gave us whatever we needed; Chuck & Hector and the wonderful C & C Maintence staff for always being there for us in a minutes notice ; Lisa, Pat and Yulissa from Carter Burden (senior center) for their continuous assistance and allowing us to use their space; Pastor Carolyn Marko and her amazing staff from 9 Million Reasons for always providing us with enough food to feed our community; all of the wonderful volunteers that have selflessly given their time and energy to help us feed our community. 

There is no food pantry tomorrow, but there will be one next Friday in spite of Covid-19 numbers going up. Only difference may be that residents will be given boxes of food that we will pack up for safety reasons. We will play it be ear...we want to keep everyone safe...both residents and volunteers.

We appreciate all of you ....and wish you all a Very Happy Thanksgiving...

Here's more on RIDA's efforts, together with community volunteers,

                                               Image Of RIDA, Evangel and NYC CERT Members Prior To Delivering Food Saturday May 2

helping feed Roosevelt Island during the pandemic.

Happy Thanksgiving Roosevelt Island!