Story and Photos by Ben Watson
What would Thanksgiving be without showing the love and care we have for others? The Grace Church of the Nazarene did just that with the meals they’ve prepared today. As soon as I got to the church, I was greeted by opened doors and a lovely group of volunteers including a kind pastor Trent. He helped me down the hallway where I spoke to Tammy Foltz, the person in charge of the community thanksgiving, who was hard at work helping prepare food. She introduced me to some of her kind volunteers, such as Louann Donoho and Adrien Harnett who are featured in the photo gallery below.
When asked about the food preparation this year, Tammy said, “Food prep has been awesome. We’ve had probably enough food for 550 people (up from 350 reserved last year). We have had some turkeys and hams delivered that we were not expecting, so that’s a blessing. We’ve had about 50 volunteers today show up for food prep and greeting people.”
From what I gathered, not even counting the meat that was donated, the church had a large number of turkeys and hams. They also had plenty of pie, and many sides including corn and green beans (which, according to Tammy, were hot commodities this year). That’s a lot of good food! And it’s good they had plenty because by 11 o’clock, they had around 200 carryout orders placed.
It was beautiful sightseeing a community together, even in the difficult times we have been given. When asked about the conditions of the feast, Tammy said, “As far as everybody here and personnel and prepping, it’s like we never missed a beat. There were some supply shortages (green beans and corn), we ran into some of that.”
The final tally of meals prepared was 375.
