Gourmand Cafe was buzzing with activity Wednesday morning as a small army of volunteers put the finishing touches on more than 50 Thanksgiving meals that in just a few hours would be delivered to Berks County families.
Mitchell and Kristen Kriebel, owners of the Wyomissing restaurant, were stacking aluminum trays with turkey on a counter while Jessica Prutzman placed them into brown paper bags. Others filled plastic cups with gravy and cranberry sauce. And a few people were bringing platters of green beans from the kitchen.
It was an all-hands-on-deck kind of operation.
The operation, a campaign called Spread the Love, was the combined effort of the Kriebels and Prutzman, president of JPrutzman Enterprises in Sinking Spring.
Earlier this month, Prutzman and Kristen Kriebel were sitting at the restaurant talking about how Gourmand Cafe would soon begin preparing Thanksgiving meals for its customers when they wondered if there was more they could do to help those who may not have the means for a delicious spread on the holiday.
“We came up with the idea of partnering up to see how many meals we could get sponsored by local business owners and within 24 hours we had 30 different people tell us they wanted to help,” Prutzman said. “The outpouring of support was overwhelming.”
The meal would include turkey, potato stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans, corn, gravy, cranberry sauce and rolls. Recipients would also get a bouquet of flowers from Events by Kelly’s Florist in Leesport and a dessert from Fresh Cake by Suzy in Boyertown.
Mitchell Kriebel, an owner of Gourmand Cafe in Wyomissing, prepares trays filled with turkey Wednesday morning for Thanksgiving meals to be delivered to Berks County families in need. (KAREN SHUEY – READING EAGLE)
With the cost of the meals covered, Prutzman said she reached out to friends who put them in touch with social workers at four school districts in the county to nominate families in need. Then they widened their reach by opening the nomination process on their respective Facebook pages.
Then, something unexpected happened.
The people who nominated families wanted to contribute to the cost of the meal, which meant there was more money to put toward gift cards that could help ensure the giving lasted beyond just a single day.
Prutzman reached out to her friends at Berks Deals & Steals and Shillington Grocery Outlet to see if they would be interested in providing the gift cards, and she said they jumped at the chance to be part of the effort.
So each family receiving a meal also got an envelope stuffed with a $25 gift card to the Shillington Grocery Outlet, a $20 gift card to Gourmand Cafe and a $10 gift card to Berks Deals & Steals.
Kriebel said the generosity of others was an amazing thing to witness.
“It just kind of blew up over night,” she said. “The way the community came together to help make this happen was pretty incredible.”
She said next year they plan to start the process earlier so they can help even more families in the community who may be struggling.
Prutzman said reading the stories of the families who were nominated gave her a newfound appreciation for what so many people are dealing with on a daily basis that she would have never known.
“It made me realize what Thanksgiving is really all about again,” she said. “Sometimes you don’t recognize the need until you step back and then it makes you feel grateful.”