CHAHPEL HILL - Effie Merritt did more than give thanks for her family's holiday meal each year. She made sure others had one too.

Each year, Merritt would cook a little extra food for some of her friends. The tradition grew "in a big way," daughter Shirley Merritt Bradshaw said, after Effie's husband, Clarence, died in 1985 and their adult children began delivering plates to widows in the Northside community.

Only after their rounds did the family settle in for its own Thanksgiving dinner.

About three years ago, Merritt suffered a fall and had to stop the tradition. This year she asked her son Jim, the new Town Council member, to make a donation to the Orange County Training School-Lincoln High-Northside Alumni Association in honor of the class of 1938, her graduation year. Black children attended segregated schools in Chapel Hill until 1966.

The gift grew, as other classes joined in. In a short time they raised $1,200.

So Saturday morning, friends who've known each other since grade school met at St. Paul AME Church on Merritt Mill Road, across from the Greenbridge development downtown, to pack boxes.

Turkey, dressing, string beans, black-eyed peas, white potatoes and cranberry sauce.

They delivered 51 boxes to people and families identified through neighborhood churches.

"I don't think you can ever meet the entire need, but we were able to supply baskets and dinners for all the names we received," Jim Merritt said.

But if they were doing a good deed, those at St. Paul said they were also doing something more.

"We are natives of Chapel Hill, and we know most of the people in the community," said Juanita Jones-Alston.

"They gave to us," said Esphur Foster, "and now it's our time to give back."

The names of the old neighborhoods -- Pottersfield, Sunset, Tin Top -- have gone the way of the dirt roads that children once played on.

But the friends don't want to lose the part of their culture where everyone looked out for everyone else. It was a time, Foster said, when adults "knew your back from your walk, if they saw you out at night" and knew you should be inside doing your homework.

That kind of looking out for is still needed.

"We want our grandchildren and our great grandchildren to know who we are," Foster said. "So they'll know who to go to if they need guidance."

The alumni association, 867 members strong, is holding a holiday costume party Friday night at the American Legion Post to see old friends home for Thanksgiving.

But first, the group will gather Thursday morning at the Hargraves Community Center.

They've got another 60 holiday meals to deliver -- and a tradition to keep up.