The Salem Community Thanksgiving Dinner for the second year in a row served 1,300 meals.
The effort is the combined work of Saved with Amazing Grace, the Marion County YMCA, and the Salem Apostolic Church which was the location of the dinner.
Chris Watkins of Saved with Amazing Grace was pleased with the number volunteering to help.
“It ran like clockwork. All the volunteers that came in to deliver food, that went by quick. Everyone who donated blankets and money and all of that, we appreciate it. We couldn’t have done it without the people in community coming together to help. A shoutout to the community for helping.
Watkins says to serve 1,300, they had to smoke 95 turkeys. Salem Grade School Resource Officer Ryan Meador reached out and wanted to help and was able to smoke 20 of the turkeys.
Jed Casburn says the rest of the meal was prepared by those at the Salem Apostolic Church.
“35 boxes of mashed potatoes, 80 cans of green beans, 40 pounds of butter, and 315 boxes of stuffing.”
Casburn says in addition to donating towards the dinner, the community was once again great with donating blankets to be given to those in need.
“We had another successful drive this year. We received 76 blankets. We had probably seven different sites this year and everybody was phenomenal. I think a lot of people are getting engaged a lot in this community and that is what it is all about,”
Casburn says about 85 percent of the meals are now delivered and for the first time blankets were also offered to those taking delivered meals.
As in the past, 500 dinners were also prepared and delivered to the Centralia Youth Center.
Workers preparing meals at the Salem Community Thanksgiving Dinner.
