Embedded Files
11/27/2025 - It’s that time of year again when thanks and giving are abundant, and the Northern Marianas Technical Institute is continuing its tradition of preparing a Thanksgiving feast for the Guma’ Esperansa shelter—a shelter for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking.
On Tuesday, NMTECH’s culinary students handed the food they whipped up—pies, ham, turkey, candied yams, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sauteed vegetables, cranberry sauce, and gravy—to Karidat’s executive director Lauri Ogumoro and shelter manager Lisa Ada. They were also joined by several members of the Legislature who donated the food including Rep. Joel Camacho, House Speaker Edmund Villagomez, and Rep. T.J. Manglona.
Ogumoro said that the food is going to feed many families in their shelter. “We have built this wonderful relationship with NMTECH and they’ve been doing this… for about 6 or 7 years. They help get donations from the congressmen and community and then they cook the food for us, and we bring it up to the shelter and the women and children and whoever’s in the shelter, really enjoy it,” she said.
During these times, she said they’re really grateful because the holidays are usually a time when families come together and count their blessings, but it can also be a hard time for some. Gestures like this remind those families that people are thinking of them and that they haven’t been forgotten.
One culinary student, Mkay Alferos said that cooking up the feast means a lot. “It really means a lot—feeding this much amount of food for people who actually don’t get to try Thanksgiving food, it’s dear to my heart.”
Her Thanksgiving message to the community: “I hope everybody stays safe especially with everything going on in this island. Hopefully everybody has a happy Thanksgiving.”
For NMTECH culinary instructor, chef Inas Hocog, he said, “Thankfully for the Legislature, they gave us two turkeys, three hams, all the fixings. My students, they produced all of this for us. They spent one day on prepping, which was yesterday, and they came in early this morning to execute the recipes.”
On how this tradition came about, Hocog said it was because one of their former instructors wanted to do something every Thanksgiving, and it just became a tradition from there. He also said that it also plays a crucial role in their class “because it gives them the concept of quality food preparation which is part of our curriculum and because in their finals, they do å la carte cooking—so it gives them the best of both worlds.”
By Leigh Gases
Report abuse