Thanksgiving Dinner
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St. Stephen’s, Bethany Lutheran help hundreds enjoy Thanksgiving with meal
OLEAN — South Barry Street saw heavy traffic Thanksgiving morning as the annual effort to feed hundreds on the holiday.
Working out of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on Thanksgiving morning, more than 900 meals went out the door thanks to efforts by the congregation of St. Stephen’s and Bethany Lutheran churches.
The Rev. Kim Rossi, pastor of both congregations, was pleased with the annual effort running smoothly for yet another year. Initially, 850 phone-in orders were made, but orders continued to roll in Thursday morning.
“We will probably do over 900, easily,” Rossi said. “People call in at the last minute, and if we have food, we can serve them.”
Rossi said enough food was purchased for about 950 meals.
Previously, the effort relied on outside volunteers, but that changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, Rossi said, the event has run smoothly thanks to parishioners at the two churches.
“It’s really been a church congregation event,” she said, thanking the roughly 50 volunteers who helped since Monday with food prep and the 30 drivers who made 34 delivery runs.
The pandemic also ended dine-in service, but Rossi noted that dine-ins had declined to about 15% of the meals served before 2020.
