FLORENCE — Veterans across the Pee Dee came out Monday to the Golden Corral on South Irby Street in Florence for their annual free “thank you” dinner.
The crowd began gathering outside the restaurant at 3:30 p.m. The doors opened a little before 5 p.m. as the line circled the parking lot.
For Ernest Lee Ivory, a Florence resident who served 30 years in the U.S. Army, this event is not just about the free meal.
“You get to meet a lot of comrades here and you get to talk over the things that happened and the things that didn’t happen and things we wanted to happen. It’s a good thing to reunite ourselves,” Ivory said.
The Florence Golden Corral has hosted this dinner for the past six or seven years, said Rick Small, the general manager of the restaurant.
“Every year it gets to be a little bit better crowd, as far as the turnout is concerned,” he said.
Small estimates about 2,000 people would eat between 5 and 7 p.m.
“It takes a little bit of extra work. Every year we try to get a little bit better at it. We try to prep for it at least a day or two in advance,” he said.
In the nine years the franchise has hosted this event, Golden Corral restaurants nationwide have provided more than 2.2 million free meals and contributed more than $3.3 million to the Disabled American Veterans organization, according to the restaurant’s Web site.
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