What happened: Thousands of guests sat down to turkey and gravy at the Midland County Horseshoe Pavilion Friday evening for Midland’s 24th H‑E‑B Feast of Sharing. The dinner was free and open to everyone. Plates came with mashed potatoes, green beans and a roll, with pumpkin pie for dessert. H‑E‑B provided paper turkey hats for guests. Musicians performed live onstage.

One of the more interesting parts of the dinner was how guests were served. There were five groups of workers. One brought the main meal, one brought pie, one brought drinks and one collected trash. The fifth group carried signs for each job. If guests at a table needed drinks, for example, a worker would hold up the drinks sign so that crew knew where to go. The same system worked for dinner, dessert and trash pickup.

The big picture: Before guests went through the doors to the main hall, they passed tables set up by local organizations. Most of the resource fair was in that hallway, with a few more tables inside near the kids’ area. Most booths had candy for visitors, and some offered something a little different.

Communities In Schools of the Permian Basin had Thanksgiving coloring pages for kids. Midland Health Services handed out rubber ducks, and The Gideons International had Bibles at its table. Midland Community Theatre brought an Olaf cutout to promote its production of Frozen. Casa de Amigos and the Salvation Army displayed information about their programs. IDEA Henry, Midland ISD Pre‑K, H‑E‑B Pharmacy and Oceans Behavioral Hospital also had tables.

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Inside the main hall, kids could play on inflatables or get their faces painted. H‑E‑Buddy, the grocery bag mascot, made an appearance near the welcome banner. A balloon display stood near the dinner area, where rows of long tables filled much of the hall.

The West Texas Food Bank had a table at the event and helped recruit volunteers for setup, greeting guests, serving meals and cleanup. H‑E‑B brought its mobile kitchen to prepare the dinner and partnered with EZ Rider to offer free rides to the Horseshoe. Before the event, H‑E‑B expected to serve more than 7,000 people and said it would need about 450 volunteers. Final meal and volunteer counts weren’t available for this story.

Why it matters: Some Midlanders got their holiday meal before the doors opened at the Horseshoe. On Wednesday, H‑E‑B employees helped prepare and package 700 meals for homebound seniors through Senior Life Midland’s Meals on Wheels program, as the Permian Press reported before the dinner. Volunteers made short visits and checked in on the people they delivered to. Senior Life Midland also named a delivery route in honor of H‑E‑B.

That part of the Feast of Sharing has been around for years. In 2017, H‑E‑B, the city and what was then called Senior Link Midland planned to deliver holiday meals to more than 600 homebound seniors. This year’s deliveries were separate from the dinner at the Horseshoe and gave people who couldn’t make the trip a way to share in the tradition.

Go deeper: The placemats at Friday’s dinner listed 34 cities across Texas and Mexico, including Midland. H‑E‑B started Feast of Sharing in Corpus Christi and Laredo in 1989. Midland held its first dinner in 2003. H‑E‑B says the series now serves more than 340,000 meals across 34 dinners.

An older event listing gives a sense of what it takes to feed a room that size. In 2018, H‑E‑B listed 2,000 pounds of turkey, 2,000 pounds of mashed potatoes and 8,000 rolls for Midland’s dinner alone. On Friday, while crews moved between tables with plates, pie and drinks, guests could stay in their seats and listen to the band or head over to the booths and kids’ activities after dinner.