LONG BEACH, Miss. (WXXV) \u2014 This marks the 17th year for the annual Christmas Eve Lunch hosted by First Methodist Church of Long Beach.<\/p>\n
Church members came together to prepare large meals, opening their doors to anyone in the community who wants a warm place and a hot meal to celebrate Christmas.<\/p>\n
The church also hosts a food drive, which allowed guests to take home canned goods and other essential items they need. And for the kids, a special reading room\u2014where church members read Christmas stories aloud, and each child got to choose a book to take home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love to serve, we love to serve the community, and we\u2019re just all about putting who Jesus is out in our community. So, to be able to celebrate and invite them in today for a hot meal, and just to love on our community in a special way, just means everything to us,\u201d said church member Marsha Bishop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just sweet. Year after year, you\u2019ll see the same people that return every year. Especially a lot of the elderly people that might be alone for the holiday, they\u2019re here and they\u2019re able to come in and fellowship with us, visit with us, and just have a hot meal and not have to worry about things. It\u2019s just a sweet like gathering of everybody, and there\u2019s always somebody smiling and ready to greet them,\u201d said church member Monica Dardeau.<\/p>\n
And in the spirit of giving, once the lunch came to an end, they packed up meals for those in the community who were unable to make it out, and will deliver them to homes and even local fire stations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it shows what we\u2019re here for \u2014 God\u2019s love. We\u2019re here to help those who are not as fortunate as many of us, and just to show that our church and our community cares for them. A little thing like a good, warm meal means a lot,\u201d said church member Scott Rishel.<\/p>\n
This is such a big event in the Long Beach community that even Mayor Tim Pierce stopped in to grab a plate and say hello.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a giving season, and anything that we can do to help the less fortunate\u2026 it just makes you feel better, and that\u2019s who Long Beach is. When people are in need, we reach out and we help. This is a perfect example of how great people are over here in Long Beach and how much they care,\u201d said Mayor Pierce.<\/p>\n
The annual event comes together thanks to countless helping hands, and First Methodist says they look forward to continuing this Christmas tradition of serving their community for many years to come.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Miss. (WXXV) \u2014 This marks the 17th year for the annual Christmas Eve Lunch hosted by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-108267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}