Unable to Afford Travel, Students Celebrate Thanksgiving Together

Nov. 26, 2009— -- Sophia Fuka isn't celebrating Thanksgiving with her family this year.

But that doesn't mean she'll spend the holiday sulking around her apartment, pining for a home-cooked feast.

Instead, Fuka, a 25-year-old Arizona State University graduate student, is cooking Thanksgiving dinner for her closest friends, most of whom also can't afford a weekend away from Phoenix.

"We're busy," she said. "When it comes down to us having a day off of school, we have a lot of catch-up work to do."

For students like Fuka and her friends, traveling home for a few days to be with family just isn't worth the cost or time away from studies. She estimated that a plane ticket to her Lidgerwood, N.D., home would cost about $400.

Dropping $300 on Thanksgiving airfare when a longer break is just a few weeks away is out of the question, said Erik Mellgren, 21, a University of Nebraska biology senior.

Mellgren will spend Thursday cooking traditional cuisine, like turkey, potatoes, squash and green bean casserole, for what he calls "Orphans' Thanksgiving," an annual meal he's thrown for fellow Nebraska students who don't have the cash to leave Lincoln and be with mom and dad.

He started the tradition his sophomore year with a friend who, as a resident assistant, also couldn't skip town. Instead of attempting a 12-hour drive to his parents' Roscommon, Mich., home, Mellgren said he is looking forward to hosting about eight friends at his house.

Each guest is expected to bring a traditional dish within his or her culinary repertoire. In addition to dinner, some of his friends will watch football while others enjoy Spike TV's marathon of James Bond movies, he said.

Cooking the turkey and planning the party serves almost as a rite of passage into adulthood, Mellgren said.

"It really was one of those growing-up moments," he said of learning how to make a turkey.

Now he's so good at it, he joked, that he'll insist on making the turkey even when he visits his family for the holiday.

Fuka said she won't even try to recreate her North Dakota family's signature dish of duck and rice. She usually goes for out-of-the-ordinary cuisine instead.

Last year's menu consisted of enchiladas and guacamole. There could be a pasta bar this time around.

Some students prefer tradition, even amid the unconventional setting.

To be with his parents, Jerome Morrison, a University of Florida telecommunications senior, would have to drive up to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., from Gainesville, Fla.

That's not happening, he said. Not this year.

Aside from wanting to avoid the long, pricey drive, Morrison said he's opting to stay in Gainesville this week because he's already spent $300 to drop out of a class. New requirements in Florida's popular scholarship program, Bright Futures, demand that Morrison pays the tuition of dropped courses.

What is within his range is a simple potluck with his friends, some of whom are working on Black Friday.

He's going to try to make the turkey -- it's his first attempt -- using his mother's recipe, but he said the dinner may be moved to a restaurant should that go awry.

After the feast, he said he and his friends might watch a football game or a movie.

What's important isn't so much that he pulls off an immaculate dinner -- just that he and his friends don't let the holiday pass them by.

"Why should we all miss out on having some good turkey?" Morrison said.

ABCNews.com contributor Katie Sanders is part of the University of FloridaABC News on Campus program.