Mission provides meals to hundreds

With the help of the City Welfare Mission, hundreds of people who might have otherwise gone hungry will have full stomachs today.

Last year the mission served 610 Thanksgiving meals. Director Jeff Cremeans expects to have at least that many today, he said.

“All they have to do is sit down and we’ll bring it to them,” Cremeans said. “It’s usually about as much as you can eat. They’re not skimpish.”

The meal includes turkey and dressing, coleslaw, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce and green beans.

The grocery list needed to feed more than 600 people is extensive: 28 turkeys weighing 20 pounds each, 50 gallons of green beans, 150 pounds of cabbage for coleslaw, 85 pumpkin pies, and between 12 and 15 gallon-sized boxes of instant mashed potatoes.

If a five-year trend continues, Cremeans said the mission is likely to feed even more families this year than it did last Thanksgiving.

“In the past five years has raised 30 people each year,” Cremeans said. “It’s quite amazing. That’s just in the past five years that I’ve been doing it.”

The mission delivers some meals to a few shut-ins and offers to-go boxes.

To feed all of the people, between 50 and 60 volunteers start cooking at 6:30, before food distribution starts at 10:30 a.m. Monetary donations to the mission helped purchase the food.

“We just appreciate all that people do,” Cremeans said. “I really am appreciative that they think of others to make (Thanksgiving) brighter and better for others.”