In the midst of the Minnesota National Guard’s 34th Infantry Division’s deployment to Jordan and Kuwait, Serving Our Troops is bringing soldiers and their families closer together via live video for a program and steak dinner Saturday at the Saint Paul RiverCentre.

Pat Harris, one of the original organizers of Serving Our Troops, said this is their 16th project of bringing family dinner to deployed Minnesota soldiers since the group’s inception in 2004. Previously, Serving Our Troops has hosted virtual programs and meals for soldiers stationed in the United States and abroad, including Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, Camp Shelby in Mississippi, Kosovo, Iraq and most recently, Djibouti in 2020.

“Our goals from day one are the same, which is a great meal for soldiers and families,” Harris said.

The Minnesota National Guard said the 34th Infantry Division has over 550 soldiers deployed to the Middle East as part of “a regularly scheduled rotation of units.” Troops were deployed early this year and are set to return home in December.

For this year’s project, Serving Our Troops delivered 11,000 12-ounce Mancini’s steaks to the military bases at no cost thanks to donors and Minnesota businesses, Harris said. To date, the organization has served over 110,000 steak dinners to soldiers, their families and troops from other units and states serving alongside the Minnesotans, according to a Serving Our Troops media release.

“It’s a simple thing, dinner with the family,” Harris said. “Of course, it’s lunch in St. Paul and dinner in Kuwait and Jordan, but linking everybody together and there’s going to be a chance for families to gather around a video screen and talk specifically to their own soldiers.”

The Saturday event also features other programming to show gratitude to soldiers and their families, including special guest appearances and free passes to the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Minnesota Children’s Museum, according to the Serving Our Troops website.

Harris said while these events hosted by Serving Our Troops mean “a great deal” to soldiers, their families and people part of hosting the project, they’re also an opportunity to send a message of hope to those deployed and their loved ones.

“The families will come here and realize that they’re not in it alone,” Harris said. “The soldiers will be overseas, and they’ll realize that they’re not in it alone, and that this community is thinking about them and is behind them.”

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