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The stout pecan harvest table she bought when they got married in 1959 is easy to overlook in Mary Moore's 12th floor flat at Gateway Plaza.

The table is a good six feet long, but with the drop leaves down, just two feet wide, compact enough to be tucked along the wall, out of sight.

But on her first Thanksgiving after she moved to the senior citizen high rise years ago from her house in the country, Moore, 82 and widowed, still wanted to reach out to her neighbors - even though they were no longer a country mile up the road, but just on the other side of her four walls.

So she put the harvest table in the middle of the room on Thanksgiving morning, raised the drop leaves up and brought out the good Irish linen. By dinner time, there were eight guests taking their places, passing the dressing and the green beans.

That was 1995, and in the past few years, the Thanksgiving meal shared among neighbors in the city housing complex for the elderly and disabled has far outgrown Moore's old pecan table, and moved downstairs to the tower's community room.

Last year, there were about 70 dinner guests, the year before that, more. On a holiday when the usual daily dollar lunch isn't served, and Mobile Meals volunteers don't deliver - instead, they bring frozen meals in advance - it otherwise wouldn't feel like Thanksgiving.

"My idea of Thanksgiving is a hot meal, and it's a holiday for sharing in the first place," says Moore, a bookkeeper. "I like to cook and I like to bake. I can handle it, because I plan. I've learned how to do stuff cheaply."

After volunteering on the front lines at Greensboro Urban Ministry - the Emergency Assistance desk, where families come with eviction papers and utility cut-off notices - Moore is well familiar with the turmoil for those who were already struggling. The greater the need, it seemed, the less help was available.

The math is just the opposite in the kitchen - the more people to feed, the cheaper each dinner becomes. It's the economy of scale: She buys gallon cans of green beans at Sam's Club, each enough to feed 22 people, fruit and produce at Bessemer Curb Market, and scours supermarket sales on turkey breast or cranberry jelly.

"You ought to see the back of my car," Moore said of her aging '94 Taurus. "Good thing it has a big trunk."

For the 221 residents of Gateway Plaza, there is somewhat of a cushion against the downturn: The rent is according to their income, utilities included, and most receive medical assistance and a prescription benefit - along with the $1 daily lunch.

Still, those on fixed incomes are hard pressed when transportation and grocery prices surge. Moore, who today volunteers in the Urban Ministry food pantry, stocking shelves and packing bags of groceries, sees people moving back to do-it-yourself meals, more basic grocery lists and simpler ways to celebrate holidays.

"It's going to be hard on families," she said. "But holidays had gotten to be too much. The kids have gotten to where they expect too much. We haven't taught them how to appreciate things. Everything has been so available, so easy."

When Moore and her neighbors got together for their first big holiday dinner, it was on New Year's Day. But in the past few years, Thanksgiving seemed a more fitting day for the meal, this neighbor signing up for a dessert, or that one to help serve.

And it's a funny thing. The more residents who showed up at the table, the more plentiful the food became.

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn @news-record.com