A food column that appears on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving typically offers a last-minute stuffing recipe or suggestions for turning leftover turkey into hash. Instead, on this Thanksgiving Eve I’ll be contemplating the goodwill that is supposed to mark the holiday season and how a humble meal has already made it happen.

Last Wednesday night, more than 600 people showed up at one of Baldwin’s elementary schools to make a freewill donation at a community supper whose menu featured a choice of chili or vegetable beef soup and an array of homemade desserts. The event was planned as a benefit for Sherrie Wood, who is battling a rare cancer that metastasized to her liver.

Sherrie’s ties to her community run deep. She has lived in Baldwin all her 40 years, and most of her extended family is still there. She works at Baker University, and she and her husband, Kevin, have two children who attend the local schools and play local sports. Baldwin could not be more Sherrie’s town.

So, when fate, in its inexplicable cruelty, pointed its finger in Sherrie’s direction, the community rallied to her side. First, people at Baker and Stephen’s Real Estate, where Sherrie used to work, pitched in more than $3,000 to help offset the costs of her travels to Philadelphia for treatment by a specialist.

Then came the community supper last Wednesday, which was sponsored by the Ives Chapel Methodist Church and was mobilized, in large part, by two of the most determined people on the face of the Earth. Alice Gurley, a longtime resident and Avon lady who knows nearly everyone in town, was at the forefront, along with Myra Glover, who works for Baker’s dean of students and also knows nearly everyone in town.

Baker University and the Baldwin City Market donated ingredients, and a squad of cooks, mostly members of the church, made who-knows-how-many gallons of chili and soup.

Members of the church, various clubs and the community at large dropped off so many desserts that the organizers lost count. Legendary baker Eileen Flory made 400 (that’s a four and two zeroes) cinnamon rolls.

The organizers were second-guessing themselves until the last minute. The weather was bad that day, so they rounded up scads of plastic containers in case attendance bombed and they had to sell off the leftovers.

In the end, however, the crowd was so large that the soup and chili were both gone an hour and 15 minutes after the first bowl was ladled. But people kept coming and kept donating. When the volunteers turned off the lights in the grade school cafeteria last Wednesday, they had collected $9,891. This past weekend, donations were still trickling in from people who had been unable to attend.

While the amount of money raised by this no-frills chili feed is impressive, that’s only part of what made this event so significant. Volunteers, who turned out in large numbers, set up and bused tables, then took them down and cleaned up the kitchen, the school cafeteria and the school library, where the overflow crowd had to be seated.

The spirit of community and outpouring of concern were stunning.

“We had Baker people, we had townspeople, we had the high school football team, we had junior high kids,” Gurley said. “It wasn’t this church or that club or da-da-da. It was just everybody.”

In the days after the supper, a number of Baldwin people who know that Sherrie is my dear friend have told me that they have never been so proud to be a member of their community – to be part of an effort that was bigger than each of them individually. I have to say that the sight of so many people coming together for a common purpose, hoping to create something good out of a heart-wrenching tragedy, took my breath away.

So did news that a group of Baker students had raised more than $1,800 Friday night with a benefit concert for Sherrie, featuring five bands and other performers.

Experiencing something like this can’t help but reorder your priorities. When I saw news reports last week about thousands of people, all over the country, standing in line all night for a chance to buy the Play Station 3, I marveled at the selfishness and squandered energy. The folks down in Baldwin have shown how much good can be achieved by people who unite and invest just a little time and effort.

If Sherrie and her family had any doubt whether their community loves them, that matter has been settled. And on top of everything else, the food was superb.

– When she’s not writing about foods and gardening, Gwyn Mellinger is teaching journalism at Baker University.