By Gretchen Keiser

While most people sat down to full tables on Thanksgiving Day, the tables at St. Anthony's dining room in the West End filled and refilled with a record number of over 400 people coming for the free turkey dinner and the open door hospitality.

The dinner, co-sponsored by St. Anthony's and the St. Vincent de Paul Society, has become an annual event, now in its third year. The turnout has grown steadily, this year to a number nearly twice that of last year. The dining room was one of a few places in Atlanta where people without food could come on Thanksgiving. Wheat Street Baptist Church, Grace United Methodist Church and the Salvation Army also had dinners.

"The meal is movable, but the opportunity to serve and be served on this scale is a once-a-year event, said Maria Powell of St. Jude's parish, explaining how she and her husband, Russ, and four children and her mother Stella DiPrima, had decided to come back and serve at St. Anthony's for the second Thanksgiving in a row. Volunteers from St. Vincent de Paul and the parishes prepare food, set-up, serve and clean up for the Thanksgiving dinner. All food is donated and this year one-half of the enormous grocery list was donated by Arby's Inc., after the restaurant chain's president read of the need for donations in the Georgia Bulletin.

Meal preparations began Tuesday, said Frances Hynes who oversees St. Anthony's dining room program year-round. Those arriving from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day moved along a line past steam tables piled with turkey, dressing, rice, string beans and candied sweet potatoes and salads. A pie table was a busy corner of the room. At the far end, Brian Guckenberger of Newnan, who came to serve with his wife, Randy, and seven children, played the accordion for diners. The kids were eager waiters and waitresses.

One of the effects of the Thanksgiving dinner and other efforts to link people in parishes with those most in need of food and shelter in Atlanta is the recognition now of familiar faces on both sides. Mrs. Powell said she found herself embracing and being embraced by a woman who remembered her from last year's Thanksgiving dinner. Others recognized those who had spent a night at Central Presbyterian Church's shelter last winter.

They found a refuge at St. Anthony's, Mrs. Powell said. "One person I talked to said, 'This place is like heaven. So many really rough men come in here and they walk in and there's so much love that they behave.'"