Leyden senior Beesan Tawil has grown up around the kitchen, creating and sharing meals with her loved ones.

On Thanksgiving she’ll be at East Leyden High School in Franklin Park sharing a festive holiday meal with 200 Navy recruits from Great Lakes Naval Station. She also participated last year in this event, which has been an annual tradition for more than 10 years.

“I was very prideful and grateful for the opportunity (last year) and to see how the military got to spend time together like everyone else,” she said. “Leyden is known for bringing the community together and this really enhances really great times and you feel grateful doing it.”

She’s especially thankful for her family and teacher.

“I grew up with a family from the Middle Eastern part of Asia who love to cook and share meals,” Tawil said. “It’s the love language in our culture. To put that into the culinary pathway of our leader, (teacher) Nichole Stockard, she’s taught me and helped me improve what I enjoy doing, and this helps me give back to the community. I look forward to it and am excited for this upcoming event to experience that moment all over again.”

Tawil and many of her peers in Stockard’s culinary arts classes will be making this year’s dessert.

“We’re doing pumpkin pie bars, apple pie bars, a brownie sheet cake, pumpkin pie sheet cake and cherry bars,” Tawil said. “There’s so many people so it’s easier to make bars than pies and we can offer a variety.”

Leyden school buses will make their way on Thanksgiving to Waukegan to pick up the recruits and bring them to the school at around 9 a.m. for a day of food, fun and connecting with family and friends. The Leyden Chamber Choir will be on-hand to provide live entertainment, the Packers-Lions football game will be on TV and there will be games to play as well as cellphones and Chromebooks for the recruits to use to reach out and connect with their families.

“It gives us such joy to be able to treat those who serve our country a family-style experience at a time when we know they aren’t able to be with their own families,” said Nick Polyak, Leyden Community High School District No. 212 superintendent. “Our hope is that their time with us helps to show them the love and support of our Leyden communities.”

It also provides a valuable lesson about commitment.

Leyden High School District 212 officials said sharing a festive Thanksgiving meal with 200 Navy recruits from Great Lakes Naval Station is a way “to show them the love and support of our Leyden communities” at the school in Franklin Park. (Leyden High School District 212)

“To bring in the recruits just for a day, for the students, staff and community, it opens your eyes to the commitment these men and women make to start their careers,” said Greg Ignoffo, Leyden School Board president. “As a thank you to them it’s so cool to see them gravitate to the phones and computers to connect with family since they’ve been gone at boot camp. You sit back and watch and you’re giddy. They bring a lot to our community, and these are real people, not on TV or radio, but real people getting started and we’ve been fortunate to be able to interact with them.”

All are invited to welcome the recruits, who will receive a police escort, at 3400 Rose St.

“To come out and stand there and welcome them would be huge,” Ignoffo said. “We once had the number of recruits given to us reduced so we had to tell bus drivers we had enough buses and they were furious because they wanted to be involved. That’s the commitment of the community. When you see multiple police agencies and five, six, seven buses, it’s quite the spectacle.”

It’s about giving thanks just like in the holiday’s name.

“This is my third time doing it and honestly I think it kind of captures what the holiday is all about,” said Brad Sterk, Leyden food service director, whose team will be doing the cooking. “it’s about giving thanks and we’re very thankful for those recruits and what they do for us and our country. This is a great opportunity to give back and the way we do that is by sacrificing time from our events and family to give to them.”

Students and staff from East Leyden High School, including those in culinary arts classes, prepare a Thanksgiving meal to share with Navy recruits from Great Lakes Naval Station each November at the school in Franklin Park. (Leyden High School District 212)

Giving them a Thanksgiving dinner that’s nap-inducing, fantastic and filling is the goal.

“It’s an awesome opportunity for us to kind of use our skills and talents on the culinary side to make a very good Thanksgiving meal and give the recruits as close to an experience as being at home as possible,” Sterk said. “And to be able to spend some time and conversations has been very impactful and meaningful. Every time we wrap the event we get to bring up good stories and memories and share them and it’s definitely one of those feel-good events where you see everyone leaving with a smile on their face.”

Leyden senior Cassidy Chihoski is looking forward to making desserts for the recruits again.

“I enjoyed the opportunity to do it last year and to see how others are living their lives,” she said. “I liked seeing how excited they were to connect with their families on Thanksgiving.”

The kids are learning about empathy as well as eclairs thanks to this special event.

School buses will travel on Thanksgiving to Waukegan to pick up 200 Navy recruits from Great Lakes Naval Station as students and staff from East Leyden High School prepare a festive meal with at the school in Franklin Park. (Leyden High School District 212)

“As an educator, it brings me joy just because you hope in the field of education to give students different types of experiences like this,” Stockard said. “I’ve been here 20 years and have been doing it for three years now and we’ve served people, but this is on a different level. People generally are appreciative and just thankful, and they inhale the food.

“They are just so grateful they’ve been invited. Our kids see what giving back is, because not all kids get to experience this in high school, or any part of life. When I was in high school I didn’t have this kind of experience. I’m thankful to work for a district that gives these experiences to the students that are not typical ones you’d learn from a book, but these are irreplaceable experiences using so many skills.”

Experiences for the recruits, as well as the students, staff and community.

“It’s a big eye-opener and very impactful,” Sterk said. “I think it’s amazing how the Leyden community and the students and staff come out. The turnout is always amazing. Obviously, it’s a holiday and everyone has other plans, but you’d never know it. The turnout really shows that Leyden has built such a strong foundation in the belief in giving back.”

C.R. Walker is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press. 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/23/leyden-thanksgiving-navy-recruits/