UNH Today

James Gecek ’28 knew before he even got out of bed that the day had arrived.

Gecek first heard the rumor almost immediately after moving into UNH’s McLaughlin Hall this fall to kick off his freshman year – word had it that Elba Fitzwater, McLaughlin’s beloved building service worker, prepared an “amazing” Thanksgiving meal for the residents just prior to the holiday break every November.

He wasn’t awake for long Sunday, Nov. 17 before the intoxicating aromas floating through the building all but confirmed the tales.

“I woke up and the hall smelled really good, and I thought, ‘Today is the day,” Gecek says.

Indeed it was. For the third consecutive year, Fitzwater dazzled the building’s residents with a home-cooked Thanksgiving spread worthy of a fully staffed restaurant. She prepared all the traditional trimmings – turkey and gravy, stuffing, potatoes – as well as dishes representing her Puerto Rican heritage at a gathering that fulfilled her goal of bringing dozens of students together for a shared holiday meal.

“Elba is one of the best people I’ve ever met on campus,” says Owen Kelly ’28, a McLaughlin resident and first-year student from Hudson, New Hampshire, who recalled Fitzwater attending one of his live music performances earlier this year. “She’s super supportive of the students, and she did all this – no other building employee is doing this. She just does so much.”

The tradition began three years ago when Fitzwater and a previous McLaughlin hall director decided to cook a meal for the students because she knew some of them weren’t able to go home for the Thanksgiving break.

The legend quickly grew from there, and with it grew the dinner’s attendance and the menu. This year’s meal included turkey, stuffing, gravy, corn, rolls, rice and beans, baked potatoes, cranberry, spice cake, brownies and sweet potato casserole. Many of the building’s 131 residents stopped in throughout the day’s festivities.

The entire feast was homemade by Fitzwater, using various kitchens in different residence halls the morning of the gathering. She and McLaughlin resident assistants unloaded the back of her car with casserole dish after casserole dish to set up for the gathering.

The tradition is a labor of love for Fitzwater, who returns the same affection the students feel for her. “It’s so important that students feel they are thought of and cared for by El (Beringer), our hall director, and our hard-working Ras – Sade, Lilly, Jack and Ethan – while away from their home environment.” She has been known to share baked goods with the students throughout the year, and the Thanksgiving gathering has certainly become her signature gesture.

The day also includes a quilt project, where each student and staff member is asked to design a small fabric square that reflects their personality. Fitzwater then takes them and creates a quilt to represent the McLaughlin residents for that year.

“I really adore these kids, that’s why I do it,” Fitzwater says. “We wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving so they can have fellowship with their own friends before some went home and others stayed. That was the whole idea – so they can have Thanksgiving together.”

The meal “is not even work” in Fitzwater’s eyes. She’s been cooking “since I was eight years old,” she says, and her experience includes time at a fine dining restaurant and catering company in Kentucky where she learned to calculate portions and counts necessary for cooking for a crowd. The company made everything from scratch with a farm-to-table approach, including growing its own vegetables.

Fitzwater often has help when preparing holiday meals at home, as she described her own Thanksgiving as a bit more potluck, with multiple family members pitching in. “It’s nice because I’m Puerto Rican, and my daughter-in-law’s family are Filipino, so we combine our cultures and everybody brings their culture’s food,” she says.

Infusing her own culture into the traditional Thanksgiving menu for the students is another joy of Fitzwater’s. The rice and beans dish she included this year is one of her specialties, and she says she likes her rice the best because she does everything – including the sofrito – from scratch.

This is the second consecutive year that McLaughlin is home to a residential learning community (RLC) for the College of Health and Human Services (CHHS), with one floor dedicated to CHHS first-year students, and Fitzwater’s meal was just another way she has left her mark with that group.

“They’re really lucky to have Elba here,” says Mary Beth Carstens, advising and academic success director at CHHS. “The students look forward to the dinner. She’s an amazing human being.”

Says Fitzwater of the CHHS team: “They have supported our mission from day one three years ago with volunteers who loved being there. They were of the greatest help. They became part of the McLaughlin family, where they, too, were included in the quilt project.”

Beringer is in their first year as McLaughlin’s residence hall director, and helped cover the cost of this year’s meal with budgeted funds because the gathering has become such an integral part of the building’s year. Beringer says Fitzwater is “very highly regarded” by everyone in the building’s community, and the Thanksgiving event represents everything they could ask for in terms of creating a culture.

“Everyone loves Elba, and it’s really humbling to me because I’m in my first year here. To see this person be a leader in this space and bring me into it, it speaks to the team member we have in Elba,” Beringer says. “As a hall director, my whole mission and purpose is to build community, and this is a really great time to see everyone come together.”

That’s where Fitzwater derives the most joy from the event, as well. After all the food has been prepped and set up and the smells wafting through the halls have drawn students together, she can stop and appreciate the power of seeing so many people with different interests and backgrounds gathering to create new connections.

“This is what’s important – it’s about them being together and having a nice time,” she says. “A lot of these kids didn’t know each other, and now look at them – they’re all blended. That’s the beauty of this.”