The Sons of Italy thanked hundreds of area veterans for their service Friday with free spaghetti dinners at the organization’s headquarters. Service members from different military branches and eras of conflict ate and talked in a packed hall. “This is an annual function that the Sons if Italy puts on to honor the veterans,” Doug Hartleib, president of the organization, said. “We’ll serve around 400 dinners and we have about 15 volunteers from the Sons of Italy participating. We have probably one of the best menus in town.”

The annual event has been held close to Veterans Day for the past eight years.“It’s a great turnout. We have such great volunteers. It’s a good function for the veterans because we appreciate what they do,” Hartleib said. “We want the veterans to enjoy the meal.” He said the local Sons of Italy includes several veterans.