Methodists offer up free Thanksgiving

A free Thanksgiving dinner cooked and served by the United Methodist church members will be held Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 25.

Volunteers are putting together a turkey extravaganza complete with mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, pie and stuffing.

“We’ll probably have three or four kinds of pie,” said Donna Thompson, the church member who is organizing the dinner.

Thompson and other church members began cooking and serving free community dinners once a month at the start of this summer. Attendance at those dinners has grown from eight people at the first dinner to 55 at the most recent dinner.

Thompson asked diners at the last dinner if they would be interested in a free Thanksgiving dinner. Their answer was an enthusiastic “yes”.

“They just want someone to eat with on Thanksgiving, especially,” Thompson said.

The dinner will be served at 1 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of the church on Thanksgiving day.

Thompson said her reasoning behind offering the dinners can be traced to her values; helping others is important.

“I have always had a sense that you need to reach out to others that don’t have what you have. You need to help others, especially on the holidays, so they aren’t alone,” she said.

She may need help in the kitchen beforehand on that day. Because it is a holiday, other regular volunteers who usually help cook the dinners may not be able to help.

They’ll be peeling the mashed potatoes the night before to “get a head-start.” The other traditional dinner fixings will be cooked by hand in the church kitchen, Thompson said. They are expecting between 30 to 50 people.