Thanksgiving in San Diego alone (2013, home, to buy)

[kimolive]

My son is not able to come home for Thanksgiving & doesn't know very many people in San Diego. Where we are from, there are families that will invite soldiers for the holidays. He just got out of the Army & is a full-time student at SDMC, in the Army Reserves and works two part-time jobs. Does anyone know of any organizations that might know of families willing to invite soldiers (or whoever) for the holidays?

[Fran66]

Sometimes people contact bases and (somehow) tell someone that their family would like to host a service person (or more than just one). But I don't know exactly how that works. I just remember that I worked with a few people who did that kind of thing -- but that was some time ago (I am now retired). But that was for regular Army, Navy and Marines.

He might try this:

Thanksgiving at USO San Diego DWTN
When Thursday, Nov 28, 2013
Description Participants must register in advance for this event. Call 619-235-6503.

He might talk to his CO and see what his CO knows about families inviting service persons.

I wish I could do more -- but this is all I can come up with. I'm sorry.

I hope he knows we are all grateful for his service.

[kimolive]

Thanks!

[Think4Yourself]

Originally Posted by kimolive

My son is not able to come home for Thanksgiving & doesn't know very many people in San Diego. Where we are from, there are families that will invite soldiers for the holidays. He just got out of the Army & is a full-time student at SDMC, in the Army Reserves and works two part-time jobs. Does anyone know of any organizations that might know of families willing to invite soldiers (or whoever) for the holidays?

My parents used to do this every year when my sister and I were growing up though back then the Navy had the old Naval Training Center open in Point Loma so the Navy was doing basic training in San Diego so it was super easy to pick up a dozen 18-20 year old Navy recruits for Thanksgiving. You just drove in, told the NCOs how many you had room for, and drove home with a car full of young hungry recruits. In fact, just about every year they said they only had room for 4-6 sailors but inevitably there would be dozens of more sailors who were home sick and who wanted to go with a family for the holiday but there just weren't enough families who would take them. Thus we'd always end up with at least a dozen and one year as many as 22. They'd look at my parents with their sad puppy dog eyes knowing they wouldn't get a family to take them in for the holiday and then my mom would tell my dad that we'd find a way to take in just a few more.

Luckily my parents always cooked way too much food plus my various aunts and uncles would bring still more (we'd usually have at least three turkeys [one fried, one done in the oven bag, and one done traditionally] plus a ham) so despite all the extra mouths there was always enough food. If it looked like something might run short than mom would send dad out to buy more. On the upside many of these young sailor really were home sick, many of them had never been away from home before, they missed their families, and they were truly grateful to have someone take them in for the holiday. Of course, others just wanted to get away from their drill instructor for day but most them really did just want to have a traditional thanksgiving meal.