Several diocesan parishes and service organizations will be sharing their blessings with others this Thanksgiving season without having to deal with the COVID-related restrictions that limited their efforts severely in 2020 and somewhat in 2021.
One of the longest-running of these events is the annual Thanksgiving Day dinner at the family center of Columbus St. Aloysius Church, 2165 W. Broad St. Sandy Bonneville, dinner coordinator for the 25th year, said this might be the 50th anniversary for the event.
“I don’t think anyone knows just when we started serving dinner because all of the founders have passed on,” she said. “I know it’s been more than 40 years.
“Last year, we set a record by serving more than 1,000 dinners either here at St. Al’s, to homebound people, to the unsheltered living on the streets of the Hilltop and Franklinton neighborhoods or to the Backdoor Ministry at the (Columbus St. Joseph) cathedral. About 200 meals were takeouts, and 100 went to the Backdoor Ministry.”
This year’s dinner will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 24. Anyone is welcome to attend. All in attendance, in addition to being served a complete Thanksgiving meal, will receive a bag of groceries and other essentials. Winter coats and other clothing also will be available.
The Columbus Folk Music Society will provide entertainment for the diners, as it has most years since 2014. Also assisting with various aspects of the event will be Columbus Bishop Ready High School students and members of the diocesan St. Vincent de Paul Society and the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Meal deliveries will be handled by volunteers from Catholic Social Services, who were unable to take part last year because of COVID restrictions. The deliveries last year were handled by volunteers from the Hilltop parishes of St. Aloysius and St. Mary Magdalene, which share the same pastor and have adopted the motto “Saints Alive!”
Besides hosting the Thanksgiving dinner, members of the community outreach committee for the Saints Alive! parishes distribute hot meals along Sullivant Avenue and other principal streets of Franklinton and the Hilltop on most Thursdays and some weekends. Bonneville is hoping that next year the parishes can resume the Sunday-afternoon community dinners they formerly sponsored.
“Gentrification is changing the neighborhoods, especially Franklinton, where high-end apartments and shops are replacing many of the older buildings,” Bonneville said. “This is improving things in many ways, but there are many people living in their cars or on the streets because they can’t find affordable housing. More of them than ever are women.
“These are God’s children, and it’s an honor to be able to serve them. If anybody tells you these people want to be out there, they are sadly mistaken. Perhaps that’s true for maybe two out of every 100, but not the great majority.
“Religion shouldn’t be just about sitting in the pew on Sunday but taking your beliefs from the pew to the pavement. The Thanksgiving dinner is at the heart of this.”
About 50 turkeys will be donated by the Fry Out Cancer organization, led by Dr. Sameek Roychowdhury of the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University and Matt Freedman of New Albany.
Bonneville’s son, Dr. Russell Bonneville, is a fourth-year medical student at the James, looking at new treatment approaches for advanced lung cancer. Dr. Bonneville, 31, has been helping his mother at the dinner since he was a child. His father, Russell Bonneville Jr., also played a key role at the event until his death in 2017.
The Community Kitchen at the St. John Center, 640 S. Ohio Ave., next to Columbus Holy Rosary-St. John Church, will be serving dinner in its dining room on Thanksgiving Day for the first time since 2019. It will be open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., said staff member Markiesha Morris. The meals also will be available at the same time on Wednesday, Nov. 23 at Columbus St. Dominic Church, 451 N. 20th St.
Many of the turkeys for those dinners will come from the 25th annual “Bring a Turkey to Church” weekend at Westerville St. Paul Church, 313 N. State St., which will take place after all Masses Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 19 and 20, except the 5 p.m. Sunday Mass. Parishioner Joe Sanline said that in 24 years the parish has collected 8,289 turkeys, including 538 last year, as well as $26,873 in cash, including $4,240 last year.
“In recent years, we’ve collected so many turkeys that they fill the freezer at the St. John Center, so the Community Kitchen is able to distribute the excess to other agencies serving needy families,” he said.
The New Albany Church of the Resurrection, 6300 E. Dublin-Granville Road, is collecting turkeys for the 15th year for Columbus St. Dominic and St. James the Less churches. A large truck to receive the items will be parked outside the parish ministry center on Nov. 19 and 20. Last year, the parish collected 384 frozen turkeys.
St. Vincent Family Services is collecting donations to support Thanksgiving and Christmas meals for approximately 100 families and clients in its care, said Catherine Sherman of St. Vincent. It also is returning to an in-person experience for its Adopt A Family program, in which families or individuals receive information on a needy family from St. Vincent, shop for items on the family’s wish list, wrap and label the gifts and deliver them to the St. Vincent Family Center on a specified time and date. This year’s delivery dates are Thursday to Saturday, Dec. 1 to 3.
To apply as a gift giver, go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/AdoptAFamily2022. Monetary gifts may be made at any time online at www.svfs.ohio.org or sent to St. Vincent Family Services, 1490 E. Main St., Columbus OH 43205.
The Joint Organization for Inner-City Needs (JOIN), a diocesan agency at 578 E. Main St., Columbus, that serves the city and Franklin County, will receive 200 boxes of food for distribution from the Byron Saunders Foundation, a central Ohio organization that provides Thanksgiving meals annually to families in need. Grocery cards for $20 will be included in the boxes.
The St. Francis Evangelization Center, 404 W. South St., McArthur, doesn’t have room to host a Thanksgiving dinner but gives about 500 Vinton County families a chance to have a family dinner at home through its annual Turkey Toss program. Eligible families come to the center and receive $40 food vouchers for use at Campbell’s Market in McArthur, the county’s only full-service grocery, said center director Ashley Riegel.
Scouts BSA Troop 99 and Cub Scout Pack 3040, sponsored by Knights of Columbus Council 2299 of Logan St. John Church, 351 N. Market St., are taking part in the annual Scouting for Food program and collecting food to donate to the parish St. Vincent de Paul Society’s food pantry. Thanksgiving baskets for the food will be distributed at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 20.
Sunbury St. John Neumann Church, 9633 E. State Route 37, is part of a Christmas box drive sponsored by Big Walnut Friends Who Share, an outreach of churches in the Sunbury and Galena areas.
The parish is collecting canned potatoes for a Christmas meal, with other churches collecting other items. Anyone attending the church’s Thanksgiving Mass at 9 a.m. Nov. 24 is asked to bring canned or boxed foods for Friends Who Share.
West Jefferson Sts. Simon and Jude Church, 9350 High Free Pike, is putting together containers of instant mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing and collecting monetary donations for meat for the community’s Good Samaritan Food Pantry.
The pantry at Columbus St. James the Less Church, 1652 Oakland Park Ave., will be distributing more than 400 two-box food baskets for Thanksgiving.
Zoar Holy Trinity Church, 1835 Dover-Zoar Road N.E., in cooperation with the Tuscarawas Valley Ministerial Association, will distribute dinners on Nov. 20 to homes, workplaces, domestic violence shelters, firehouses and hospices. The dinners will be prepared at the church and include turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, dressing, cranberry salad and pie.
New Lexington St. Rose Church, 309 N. Main St., is sponsoring its annual Turkey Trot 5-kilometer run or walk at 9 a.m. Thanksgiving Day in the parking lot of its former school at 119 W. Water St. Registration is $25 on the day of the race.
Zanesville St. Thomas Aquinas Church, 144 N. 5th St., will collect donations for its pantry at Masses on the weekend of Nov. 19 and 20 and in its office from Nov. 21 to 23.