Meet Janet Mulford. She's new in town. Far from her family back in Indiana. Barely knows a soul in this metropolis of 5 million. So what's a girl to do for Thanksgiving?

How about inviting 30 strangers over for a turkey dinner?

Rich Addicks/Staff (ENLARGE)

Janet Mulford, newly of Decatur, gets dinner ready Wednesday to serve today to other newcomers she met on meetup.com.

Rich Addicks/Staff (ENLARGE)

With her four dogs gazing up, Janet Mulford gets some help from meetup.com event organizer Alayna-Renee Vilmont prepare for today's Thanksgiving dinner.

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Mulford, 22, placed a notice in mid-October on the "Atlanta New In Town" page on the online networking site meetup.com, where she figured she'd find plenty of newcomers in the same predicament. She promised heaping plates of gravy-dripping food to the first 30 people to RSVP, though she warned she wouldn't have enough chairs.

"It was so expensive to fly home for the holidays ... $400 for the flight alone," explains Mulford, who moved to the Atlanta area five months ago with her new husband, Chris, for his job. "And I got to thinking: Let's just have Thanksgiving at my house. I love to cook, and I love to entertain, and this just sort of fell together."

So all week long, this young and ambitious hostess has been putting the kitchen of her new Decatur home to the test. Turkey. Sweet potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Pumpkin pies.

"The whole nine yards," says Mulford. "I'm making a corn casserole, too. It's my specialty, you know, coming from Indiana. It's a big corn state."

Who will be eating this Indiana corn casserole? Anyone whom Mulford knows at all?

A few actually, acquaintances from previous Atlanta New In Town meetups, the gatherings organized via the online site. But mostly unknowns from among the 750 members of the group.

"Four or five people have e-mailed that they're new in town, and were stuck here for Thanksgiving," says Mulford, who sounds preternaturally calm considering how much prep work she has ahead of her — and how many strangers with candied yams will soon enter her life.

"We've got a lot of people from all over the country," she continues. "There's a guy who just moved here from Australia, and this will be his first Thanksgiving. One guy is Indian and, let's see, we're having a few ex-Marines. Two or three."

The RSVP list, posted on the meetup.com site, shows a motley family taking form around Janet's table.

There's Marytina, pictured in what appears to be a white bustier.

There's sweet-looking Dave, who others describe as "a sharp guy," "too much fun" and a "genuine individual" in the "Shouts" section of his profile. Surely a guest you want at your table.

Bearded James is coming, and says he'll be bringing both whole and jellied Ocean Spray cranberries — unless Janet leaves a message to the contrary.

Also on the guest list is "M," who feels better about his new life in Atlanta, thanks to Janet.

He writes, "Thanks for doing this and inviting. To me ATL feels a lot colder than NY, because I know absolutely no one down here."

ATL colder than NY?! Not true, M!

Alayna-Renee Vilmont, the New In Town meetup group organizer, can't wait for dinner at Janet's.

A flamboyant redhead whose online profile picture suggests the water-drenching scene in "Flashdance," Vilmont has lived in Atlanta since 2005, and led this group for the past year.

"It's sort of a transitory thing, this group," says Vilmont. "Eventually people make their own friends and their own social networks and move on."

Around the country, more established meetup groups routinely organize Thanksgiving meals for their ad-hoc families.

A Virginia Beach group will feast in French. Seattlites will contribute to a vegan potluck, while select San Antonians are invited to "warp, shuttle or beam" themselves over to a Star Trek-themed meal. "It's turkey time again folks," writes the host, adding, "No, not William Shatner."

The stray Vulcan stuck in Atlanta for the holiday may still find a spot at Janet Mulford's table. Ironically, it's often newcomers like Mulford who can really put the spirit of home in a new city, says Vilmont. "She's a very good cook, and we'll definitely have parties at her house as long as she lets us."

Mulford, for her part, says that's just fine. Nor does she worry about so many untested guests tramping through her house.

"We have four dogs and an alarm system," says Mulford, thinking for a second before adding, "we also take the usual precautions and move the valuables away."