DeKalb theater troupe helps feed families this Thanksgiving

DeKALB – Volunteers with DeKalb theater group Stage Coach Players are making sure community members enjoy a nice Thanksgiving meal this holiday.

Nonperishable food items were collected by Stage Coach Players volunteers and generous individuals over the past week for the theater troupe’s annual Thanksgiving food drive.

Patti Pearson and her husband Dave Pearson, who have been involved with the Stage Coach Players for 26 years, were among those who donated food to the food drive done in partnership with The Salvation Army in DeKalb.

“We like to support the cause and give to people who are less fortunate than us during the holiday season,” Patti Pearson said. “It’s wonderful. We go to every play. Every month there’s a new play, and we go to all the plays and we usher.”

Volunteers Gloria Dennison and Angela Schiola-Niemeyer kept warm by a portable heater outside the Stage Coach Players, 126 S 5th St. in DeKalb, on Nov. 14 to collect the last batch of donations before the week of Thanksgiving.

“I think Angela and I both really like DeKalb, and I think it’s special that we have a community theater that is this good. We love doing our plays but we also like supporting people in DeKalb because they’re our people. They come to our shows,” Dennison said.

This year, the Thanksgiving food drive generated food boxes for DeKalb area families with Thanksgiving meal staples such as stuffing, turkey gravy, cranberry sauce, whole kernel corn and other food items. Cash donations and $20 gift cards toward turkeys also were accepted.

Dennison set a goal of 50 food boxes for the drive and with more than a week left before Thanksgiving she said she felt confident they’d hit the mark.

“I think people want to give, I think they just like to know exactly what they’re supposed to give, but they just don’t know. But if you give them a list they’re happy to go get the list and bring it,” Schiola-Niemeyer said.

“We love doing our plays but we also like supporting people in DeKalb because they’re our people. They come to our shows.”

—  Gloria Dennison

Schiola-Niemeyer also said she thinks the community theater group’s name recognition enables the food drive to have a wide reach.

“I think it’s an easy thing for us to do, to sit here and collect food and use our name. You know, because people know us and then people that have seen our shows will just look on our Facebook page and they’ll come. So it’s such an easy way for us to collect and to give, and then we work with other organizations,” Schiola-Niemeyer said.

The group has worked with Safe Passage, Hope Haven, DeKalb Food Mart and at the beginning of the current semester the Stage Coach Players outreach program worked with Northern Illinois University to fill campus area food banks.

Dennison, Schiola-Niemeyer and Jan Kuntz created the Stage Coach Players outreach committee in 2020 to help the community that has supported the troupe’s shows since 1947. Initially the trio operated weekly food drives, but as the COVID-19 pandemic waned and needs shifted they’ve begun conducting the drives on a seasonal level.

“It’s a way we can give back to a community that has supported us for over 70 years, because we are the second oldest continuing performing community theatre in Illinois,” Dennison said.

According to a Stage Coach Players Facebook post, the group will work with the Salvation Army DeKalb Corps Community Center to feed hundreds of local families during the 2023 holiday season. Dennison said she doesn’t think of the annual food drive in November as a Thanksgiving Day outreach program, so much as as an extension of the program’s year round efforts.

In December, an annual angel-tree gift giving program is expected to return while “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” will have a five-day run from Dec. 6 to 10.

While donating food, Patti Pearson was asked what her favorite part of being a member of the Stage Coach Players has been over the past 2 1/2 decades. She said “everything,” but emphasized the outreach program.

“The productions are always amazing and just doing this outreach program is great, they do stuff all year round,” Patti Pearson said.