Niwot Tavern hosts Christmas dinner, despite COVID

For over a decade, the Niwot Tavern has hosted a free Christmas dinner for those in need. This year, owners Tara Kpogoh-Narh and Stacy Szydlek have continued the tradition, but they've had to adapt.

"[Former owner] Bob [Russell], it was kind of his thing and he passed away," said co-owner Stacy Szydlek. "We continued it on for him."

In previous years, there have been multiple seating opportunities for people wanting to partake in the dinner--senior citizens were bussed in for one seating, other people could get a table too. But with COVID and social distancing protocols in place, the Tavern switched to delivering meals instead.

In total, about 104 meals were sent to Longmont's Roosevelt park, taken to Boulder, or driven around and given to people in need. In addition to that, the Tavern's team gave out about 200 grab bags with socks and hand-warmers, and donated about 12 large boxes of coats and other outerwear collected for donation.

"Niwot really came through," Szydlek said. "We're still doing the coat drive, [and] there were a lot of requests for pants, which we donate to different places."

Not only did the Niwot community come through in terms of coat donations, but also in terms of executing the Christmas dinner. A few community members volunteered to distribute the holiday meatloaf and the Niwot Market even lent its van to help spread the good food and joy along with it.

For Szydlek, the Christmas dinner and coat drive allows her to not only have the traditional, family oriented holiday, she also gets to share it with her "work family" and give back to the community. "It's rewarding... The need is huge, there were definitely some people who were down on their luck."