For those in the community that might not have family in the area or those that just want to spend the holiday in the company of others, the Community Thanksgiving Dinner will once again be served up in Escalon.
An outreach of the Escalon Ministerial Association, the meal will be put on at the Escalon Community Center, 1055 Escalon Ave., on Thursday, Nov. 27, Thanksgiving Day.
“Our vision for this meal is that it’s for the community,” said Heritage Church Youth Pastor Casey Ryan. “We served around 100 last year and we’re planning for 150 this year.”
The Thanksgiving meal has been hosted for years but this is the second year that Heritage is coordinating the effort, with the goal of having people come in to eat, as opposed to taking meals home. He said the idea behind the meal is to bring people together, sharing blessings and food.
There are still some home deliveries made, Ryan added, to those who are shut in and cannot get to the Community Center.
Prep work will be done on Wednesday, Nov. 26, with crews from the Modesto IOT, Institute of Technology, culinary classes handling the cooking and volunteers working to set up the Community Center with tables and chairs for dining.
“We have a couple of needs,” Ryan said of looking to fill some volunteer slots. “The general waiting on tables and we are also looking for those who are willing to sit and have a meal, sit and visit, just be friendly, that would be really great.”
Ryan pointed out that while the meal is designed to bring people together, sometimes those that come alone end up dining alone, and that is something they want to make sure doesn’t happen this year. That’s why the call is going out for volunteers to show up and visit.
“We want to provide some community and interaction on a day when we’re supposed to express gratitude,” he said.
With local food pantries including C.A.R.E. and Escalon Strong seeing an increase in visitors, Ryan said it’s likely there will be a larger turnout for the community meal this year as well.
Everyone is welcome to the holiday meal, to be served starting at 11:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day.
Those interested in donating food or financially can visit the Heritage Church website, heritagechurchonline.org, go to the Community Thanksgiving Celebration tab and then click on the appropriate links. There is also a place to sign up for the various Thanksgiving dinner jobs, from set up to serving to clean up, on the website.
