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Giving thanks: Church groups prepare community meals for the holiday
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By M.K. Luther -- mkluther@nvdaily.com
FRONT ROYAL -- For some, the Thanksgiving holiday is about more than the traditional gathering with family and friends. It's also about sharing with the community.
This year, as people come together and give thanks over the time-honored meal of turkey with all the fixings, area churches and volunteer organizations are working to make certain that no one, regardless of circumstances, will have to be alone for Thanksgiving.
For the second year, members of the Front Royal United Methodist Church choir will don their robes during Thanksgiving week and present a musical-themed community celebration dinner, with a standard turkey dinner open to the public following the musical presentation.
"It is something we came up with last year in order to be able to have our choirs give an offering and also to offer this to the community," said Cathie Johnson, Front Royal United Methodist music committee chair.
The dinner, scheduled for this Sunday at 5:30 p.m., is a way for the church to "open up a meal and a time of unthreatening worship," Johnson said.
Preparations for the celebration began as early as last January -- the 30 members of the church's two choirs practicing and arranging the vocal performance, and church volunteers working with the event's kitchen coordinator, Peggy Thompson, to plan the meal details, Johnson said.
The church's choral and sanctuary choirs will perform both contemporary music -- using guitars and drums and upbeat modern tempos -- and traditional routines, said Johnson, who is a 25-year member of the church. The event is intended to bring together the community, allowing a celebration of holiday spirit and a communion of food, fellowship and music.
"What we are trying to do is reach out to somebody who might not have a family to have Thanksgiving with," Johnson said.
The church relies on generous donations from the congregation to fund the event, raising money early in the year to help pay for the numerous turkeys needed to feed hundreds of people. Church volunteers prepare their own homemade side dishes and desserts.
Last year's community celebration dinner provided an ample meal for attendees, Johnson said, and she estimates close to 200 people will attend this year. The dinner also will include members of St. Luke's Community Clinic, The Salvation Army, Warren County Social Services, Harmony House and House of Hope.
"It is an offering to those who have need," Johnson said. "Whether it is a physical need or an emotional need -- that is why we are opening it up -- it is an offering from our church to them."
The church wants to be available for anyone in the community who wants to share a meal during the holiday, Johnson said.
"This is a time of Thanksgiving. We give because we have and we want to share -- it is our thankful giving," she said.
In Winchester, First Presbyterian Church on South Loudoun Street will host its annual free Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving Day from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and deliver free meals to the homebound and elderly.
Linda Stern, lead case worker with The Salvation Army in Winchester, said the organization and the church united years ago to serve the community members a free home-cooked, traditional Thanksgiving meal.
"I know that it is a place that people can come and feel accepted," she said. "And the volunteers also have a sense of good will."
As many as 200 volunteers work to put on the dinner, Stern said, doing everything from "donating a turkey to cooking a turkey to coming in at 7 a.m. to peel potatoes."
"It is mainly individuals and individual families," she said of the volunteers. "Some people have been doing it from the beginning."
Last year, the combined Salvation Army and church Thanksgiving dinner fed about 600 members of the community. The groups also host Christmas dinners, with enough turkeys to feed about 800 people, Stern said.
Turkeys are priced by the pound, and the price of a bird large enough to feed a substantial group of people can add up, Stern said, so the event relies on donated turkeys, as well as some volunteers who offer to cook them.
"We really need people to buy and cook turkeys," she said.
For the first time, Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Woodstock is offering a free Thanksgiving dinner to the community from 5 to 7 p.m. on Nov. 25 at the church hall. The church hosted several post-holiday picnics this past summer in the weeks following Memorial Day and Labor Day, church member Ray Smith said.
The community response was so positive that Smith decided to host a communal Thanksgiving meal.
"Ours is anybody who wants to come is welcome to come," he said.
Smith, an Edinburg resident and former restaurateur who relocated from Northern Virginia, takes on the considerable task of cooking the majority of the food for the church dinners.
"It is a passion," he said. "It keeps me from buying a restaurant."
Smith said the church's Thanksgiving dinner will be extensive enough to feed about 100 people, with three to four turkeys. Smith will lead the food preparations, but also will depend on about 12 volunteers to bring in potluck dishes of their own making.
For more information, contact Front Royal United Methodist Church at 635-2935; First Presbyterian Church in Winchester at 662-7588; and Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Woodstock at 459-2720.
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