CONNEAUT – Organizers of the Community Thanksgiving Dinner at Corpus Christi Parish Hall weren’t quite ready for the response they received as they planned the event.
As it turns out, about double the number of people than what was planned for reserved a meal, and the volunteers behind the event couldn’t have been happier.
“It’s really been quite an experience for us,” Grace Tuuri, chair of Corpus Christi Parish outreach mission Matthew 25, said. “It’s just been a blessing for us to be able to do it for as many people as we are because what we figured was going to be 250 is 500. Once they announced they were cutting off the SNAP benefits, we got like a hundred calls the following Monday. People were worried. It’s been a real blessing for us to be able to do this. We really didn’t expect this many people.”
The community was grateful for a Thanksgiving meal that included turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, cranberry sauce, a roll and a slice of pie
“Everybody has thanked us and told us how good the food is,” Tuuri said. “The stuffing is all homemade. Everything has been done by hand, except the pies. We baked 87 pies. I’m not positive, but I think we did 26 turkeys. What we did was roast them and we would shred them. We had all the drippings. We saved everything, put it in the freezer, then we thawed everything, made the gravy, got the turkey all heated up, did the stuffing.”
It took an army of volunteers to serve nearly 500 meals.
“Initially this was co-sponsored by us and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church,” Tuuri said. “That’s the way we started out. Then we decided to see if we could get some other people involved, too. The Conneaut Human Resources Center has stepped in and helped out, CAMA (Conneaut Area Ministerial Association), The Salvation Army.”
“Some of the stores in town have helped out, Save A Lot, Orlando Brothers Golden Dawn, Our Lady of Peace Parish has given help,” Tuuri continued. “We have a couple volunteers here today from a Baptist church, United Congregational Church, (Conneaut High School’s) National Honor Society helped. We, really, had almost too many volunteers. It was just wonderful to see all these people come in. People from our parish have really stepped right up,” Tuuri said.
The volunteers made the event.
“We didn’t know what to expect as far as other churches, other groups, as far as how much they were going to want to help out with this,” Tuuri said. “We weren’t asking them for money or anything like that, but what they could do to help. Some of them donated money, some donated food, but it was the volunteers who came from out of all these other places. It’s just amazed us, it really has.”
Tuuri expressed gratitude toward those who helped.
“We’re extremely grateful to Good Shepherd for wanting to step in and do this with us,” Tuuri said. “They were instrumental in helping with this. Two people I really to thank are Patty Durkin, who chaired this event, and Faith Hotovec, our kitchen head.”