More than a meal: Sierra football finds a home with Thursday dinners

Every Thursday night during football season, dozens of Sierra College football players gather around tables at Bayside Church for a meal. There's usually plenty of food, laughter, and sometimes even karaoke, Madden tournaments or other games And, according to Debbie Shepard, there's something even more important: a place where the players can feel at home. Shepard started the Thursday dinners seven years ago, when her son, Logan, was playing football at Sierra. The idea came from her husband's experience as a college baseball player at the University of Denver. While he was in college, a local family invited players to their home for home-cooked meals. "It made an impact on him," Shepard said. When Logan arrived at Sierra in 2020, Shepard's husband suggested they offer the same experience to his teammates, especially those that came to play at Sierra from outside of the area. The first dinners drew roughly 15 to 20 players, but word spread quickly throughout the team. Soon, 20 became 30, then 40, then 50. The Shepard family has two acres, so players could play volleyball, shoot pool, fish in the pond or simply sit around and talk. "It just grew to this thing that everybody really looked forward to every Thursday," Shepard said. Eventually, the dinners became too large for the Shepards' home. Shepard reached out to a pastor at Bayside Church, who helped provide space for the dinners. The Thursday gatherings remained at Bayside for three years. Even after Logan transferred to the University of Utah, Shepard continued the tradition. In 2022, one Sierra player reached out to her on Instagram. He called her "Mama Shep." "Mama Shep, we have this great team, but we're missing something," he told her. "It's the dinners. We need the dinners." So Shepard kept cooking. The dinners have evolved into a community effort. Sierra coaches now promote them to players and help connect Shepard with parents willing to contribute food and supplies. Every Sunday, Shepard creates a SignUpGenius with the following week's menu. Parents can sign up to provide anything from a case of water to a large tray of pasta. The numbers have continued to grow. Sierra has 60 freshmen on this year's roster, Shepard said, and the first dinner of the season drew 125 people. Another recent dinner had more than 90. The meals are substantial: pulled pork, tacos, nachos, chicken Alfredo, hamburgers, vegetables, dessert and water. For Shepard, making sure the players get enough protein is particularly important. She estimates roughly a quarter- to a third-pound of protein per player when planning a meal. For the first dinner this season, she smoked more than 70 pounds of pork. "It is a lot," Shepard said. "I mean, it's a lot financially. It's a lot of work." But the dinners have become about much more than feeding hungry football players. Shepard said many Sierra players come from outside the area, while others come from families without the financial means to provide everything they need. For some players, she believes the Thursday dinner may be their only full, balanced meal of the week. The dinners also provide something that can be just as valuable as the food: an opportunity to talk. This year, Shepard was invited to participate in Sierra's leadership summit, where players hear from community members, coaches and teammates. During the event, she was asked about a man who had influenced her life. She spoke about her father, who died three and a half years ago, and became emotional. Then came the questions from the players. Five players stood up and shared that they had lost a parent. They asked Shepard how to deal with the loss, how to help their remaining parent or how to help younger siblings. "It was really like, honestly, I thought, OK, this was as much as I was so-called doing them a favor," Shepard said. "It was just such a gift for me." Shepard told the players that everyone is fighting a battle they may not know about. She also told them that the dinners could be a place where they could come to her if they needed someone to listen, advice or even someone to pray for them. "If you need anything, if you need just someone, an ear to listen, or some advice, or someone to pray for you, or you're on the struggle bus somehow, some way, come to me," Shepard said. "Those dinners, I don't do those dinners for me. I do those dinners for you." That philosophy has expanded beyond food. Starting this week, Shepard and the pastor will provide players with an anonymous way to request basic necessities through a QR code. Players can request items such as deodorant, toothpaste or hair gel without having to ask publicly. The goal is to give players a support system beyond the football field and Shepard said that is especially important for a team with 60 freshmen. A player from Grant can sit next to one from Colfax. A freshman can sit next to a sophomore or returning player. Players who may not otherwise interact can sit across the table from each other and talk about something other than football. "I think that's really what those dinners are all about," Shepard said. "To see someone outside of the pads, to see someone outside of the game, to have a conversation that maybe has nothing to do with the game of football." Sierra coach Ben Noonan, Shepard said, understands that football is only part of what the program is trying to accomplish. Shepard said coaches promote the dinners to out-of-area players as part of the Sierra experience: Every Thursday, there will be a home-cooked meal and a community of people who care about them. Pastor Charvis, who has helped with the dinners, has expressed a similar message to the players. His hope, Shepard said, is that when they leave Sierra, they remember that they had a community of parents and a church that cared about them. For Shepard, the impact has lasted well beyond her son's time at Sierra. Logan's friendships from college football remain strong, and Shepard still has some of his former teammates over for dinner. "That's my hope for those dinners," she said. "As much as it is to feed them, it's really to almost allow them time to not have to worry about where they're going to eat or how much money they're going to spend, but they're going to be able to sit at a table with their teammates who maybe they don't know very well and actually have a conversation and just really kind of build a friendship that hopefully lasts a lifetime." The dinners require significant time, money and food. Shepard said community members, businesses and parents can help by providing food, donating money or sponsoring a dinner. She has already received help from friends and local businesses, including one sponsor who provided enough money to cover the protein for the dinners last year. Shepard hopes more people in Placer County will discover Sierra football and the players who are part of the community. "There is no better county than Placer County to support these boys," Shepard said. "They need it. A lot of these boys need our help." There is also a little fun mixed into the fundraising. On Oct. 1, Shepard and the Sierra football program will hold a line-dancing fundraiser at Bayside Church. It was a hit last year, even if the players' dancing skills did not necessarily match their athletic abilities. "It was the funniest, challenging thing you will ever see in your life," she said. For Shepard, that is part of the point, too. The dinners give the players a place to eat. They give them people to talk to. They give teammates an opportunity to become friends. And occasionally, they give a group of college football players a chance to put on cowboy boots and make fools of themselves on a dance floor. "It took them out of their comfort zone," Shepard said. "They kind of broke free and didn't really care and let loose, and they all had a great time."