The Knights of Columbus in Chicopee drew a record 1,100 people to its annual, free Thanksgiving turkey dinner.
Vounteers assemble to take turkey dinners to diners at the annual Open Pantry Thanksgiving Day dinner in the High School of Commerce cafeteria Thursday.SPRINGFIELD – Thousands of the needy and the lonely benefited from free Thanksgiving turkey dinners Thursday as local organizations continued to roll out the red carpet.
Open Pantry served meals to about 200 people at High School of Commerce and sent out about 800 dinners to shut-ins and elderly, according to David J. Grant, who coordinated the dining.
“We serve anybody. If you are a millionaire and have no place to go we will serve you,” Grant said.
The guests found plenty to give thanks for.
Eighty-two-year-old Esther D. Lucia of Longmeadow recalled being in the White Hut hamburger eatery in West Springfield when the June 1 tornado barreled by, just missing the restaurant.
“I was lucky I was there,” Lucia said taking a break from volunteering at the Open Pantry Community Services Thanksgiving Day Meal at the High School of Commerce on State Street.
The biggest crowds gathered for the 21st annual free dinner offered by the Chicopee Knights of Columbus Council 4044.
It drew a record 1,100 people throughout the afternoon to its Memorial Drive banquet hall. About 250 volunteers, including the Lacroix family, served more than two tons of donated turkey between noon and 2 p.m.
Dennis Lacroix, 60, said preparation began Monday and the turkeys went into the ovens at 3 a.m. Thursday. The Knights also made 400 meals for Kate’s Kitchen in Holyoke and 400 for the Chicopee Boys and Girls Club, and delivered about 2,000 to people’s homes, said dinner chairman Ronald R. Belair.
“With the economy the way it is, it just keeps getting tougher and tougher for people and it keeps getting bigger and bigger,” Belair said of the event.
Lacroix, who has volunteered for the last 19 years, said everyone is welcome: rich and poor, young and old, and anyone who just doesn’t want to be alone. No one in Amherst and Northampton had to be without turkey and, more importantly, no one had to be without family on Thanksgiving as a number of organizations dished up a holiday feast for all comers.
Not Bread Alone, the Amherst Senior Center and Manna Soup Kitchen offered turkey with all the fixings to anyone who needed a meal or simply wanted company on the holiday.
The kitchen at the First Congregational Church in Amherst was a family scene as Rachel Condry, a volunteer with Not Bread Alone, prepared a meal for some 60 people with her father and mother, William and Martha Condry.
A few blocks away, Amherst Senior Center director Nancy Pagano was overseeing the production of about 100 meals, as she has done for the past 37 years. About 30 would be delivered to people at their homes, the rest devoured at the Bangs Center.
“Everybody comes together,” Pagano said. “Nobody has to be alone.”
A bigger meal was cooking at Edwards Church in Northampton, where volunteers with Manna Soup Kitchen turned 29 turkeys, 22 hams, 150 pounds of potatoes and 100 pounds of butternut squash into a feast for up to 300 people and to-go orders for another 300. Stop & Shop and Big Y supermarkets donated the desserts.
In Holyoke, Kate’s Kitchen on Hamilton Street served 130 to 150 Thanksgiving meals with turkey and other dishes all donated by the Knights of Columbus in Chicopee, said Karen M. Blanchard, executive director of Providence Ministries for the Needy Inc.
“It was a great crowd. We had many, many volunteers and it turned out to be a great day,” Blanchard said in a voice-mail message.
Seventy-six people were served dinner at the Westfield Soup Kitchen, according to Edward J. Fournier, who directed the preparations.
“That’s a big, big crowd,” Fournier said, explaining that the kitchen usually sees just 50 people at Thanksgiving. He attributed the high attendance to the poor economy.
Another 30 were served free dinners at the Samaritan Inn, also in Westfield, according to Peter C. Gillis, who runs the operation.
In West Springfield, about 225 volunteers put on the 30th annual Phil Coburn Community Thanksgiving Day Dinner. Barbara A. Amsden, who runs the operation, said volunteers delivered about 450 meals and served about 750 sit-down diners. Some special guests were tree cutters from Green Bay, Wis., in the area helping clean up snowstorm damage.
“They came, had a nice dinner and left with fruit baskets,” Amsden said.
Other organizations putting on free Thanksgiving dinners in the region were Kate’s Kitchen in Holyoke, Friends of the Homeless in the Worthington Street Dining Room in Springfield and the Monson-Glendale United Methodist Church in Monson.
The Springfield Rescue Mission served more than 100 hot breakfasts in an hour early Thursday, according to its Executive Director Ronald Willoughby.
It is a tradition at the charity on Bliss Street that dates back longer than Willoughby, who has been director for 24 years, can remember. “We’re known as the agency who serves breakfast to the homeless,” he said, adding that the Rescue Mission serves four meals daily, six days a week.