Nonprofits plan for boxed meals over holidays
Photo courtesy of the Washington City Mission
Richard Hobbes, a veteran and former City Mission resident, enjoys a Thanksgiving meal in 2019.
Photo courtesy of the Washington City Mission
Beckett Dietrich, son of Washington City Mission’s director of programs, Leah Dietrich, helps City Mission give away many frozen turkeys during their Bags of Love event last year.
Photo courtesy of the Washington City Mission
A City Mission volunteer, Pam Wright, on right, and the Mission’s manager of career services, Brianna Kadlecik, on left, help a community member choose his turkey at last year’s Bags of Love event.
Photo courtesy of the Washington City Mission
In previous years, the City Mission’s dining hall has been full during their Week of Thanksgiving events. This year, due to COVID-19, the Mission will be handing out boxed meals.
Thanksgiving tables may look different this year, but nonprofits around the county are thankful dinner will still be served.
The City Mission in Washington, which typically fills its dining room with people on Thanksgiving Day, will be doing boxed meals throughout the holiday for community members.
“Normally, we invite the community into our dining hall to have meals with our residents,” said Gary Porter, the City Mission’s communications manager. “This year, we’ll be providing boxed meals for the community. We’ll meet them at the door.”
It will be the fourth year of the Mission’s “Week of Thanksgiving,” during which they provide lunch and dinner meals to the community. They will begin with dinner this Saturday and continue with lunches from 12 to 12:30 p.m. and dinners from 5 to 5:30 p.m. Sunday through Thanksgiving Day.
“We’ve done it for years and years – we bring hungry people into our facility, and we feed them,” said Sally Mounts, City Mission’s chief development officer. “Of course we want to bring everybody in for Thanksgiving, but since September, COVID cases have been on the rise.”
Mounts said that since March, the mission switched its other community meal distribution programs to boxed meals, instead of sit-down meals, in order to protect their residents from exposure to COVID-19. Mounts said a third of their residents are seniors and many others have preexisting conditions that could be seriously affected by COVID-19. That’s why they decided to continue that policy through the holidays.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we decided to continue the policy we put in place in March,” Mounts said. “We know that our precautions have worked because not one person at City Mission has come down with COVID, which is highly unusual for homeless shelters.”
Their residents will still be able to have socially distanced sit-down meals throughout the holidays, with masks, fewer volunteers and more sanitary precautions. The community members, however, will pick up their meal at the door on West Strawberry Alley.
“The members of the community, we don’t know where they’ve been or if they’ve been around people with COVID,” Mounts said. “We truly want to protect our record of not having any COVID cases. We want to keep it out of City Mission.”
That’s why they also limited the number of volunteers per meal to six. Last year, the mission had 25 volunteers per meal during Thanksgiving week, with a total of 450 volunteers for the week, Porter said. Some families made it a tradition to volunteer together, Mounts said.
“I definitely think that what we’ve done before will be missed, but the risk is too high,” Mounts said.
The holidays at the mission are “a very special time,” she said, because their tradition of feeding the community “helps a lot of people.” The mission will also feed the community boxed meals Dec. 23, 24 and Christmas Day.
“We just feel, during this time, that caution is warranted,” Mounts said. “The best we could do this year is what we’re doing.”
City Mission isn’t alone in its precautions this season. Lynlee Caliguiri, the Thanksgiving dinner coordinator for the Canonsburg Youth and Ministerial Association, had to change traditions in Canonsburg, too, this year.
They typically provide about 400 meals, some delivered, some take-out and about 80 sit-down meals on Thanksgiving at the Canonsburg United Presbyterian Church.
“This year we’re not permitted to do a sit-down dinner in the church,” Caliguiri said.
Instead of a sit-down dinner, they’ll offer takeout meals from noon to 2 p.m. People will have to drive up and wait in line in their cars.
“That sit-down meal was not so much for people that don’t have food, but for people who are eating alone – people that have no family or someone to be with on Thanksgiving,” Caliguiri said. “There won’t be the Christmas music playing or the setting of tables to make everything look festive.”
They also will cut back on the number of volunteers this year, Caliguiri said, as they won’t need servers for the meal. Instead they’ll have about six volunteers to take boxed meals to people in their cars.
“They’re still excited about the dinner, and they’d like to still help out,” she said. “We’ve been very fortunate. I get more volunteers than I can use each year.”
Typically, Caliguiri said, they encourage the folks dining in to take an extra meal home for later, but this year, she’s afraid of running out of food.
“This year, I would ask that people only take what they need,” she said. “It would just kill me if we ran out of food, and there were still people waiting in their cars.”
Caliguiri said with so many people out of work and struggling financially this year, they may have long lines for food over the holidays.
“I’m so worried I’ll have more people than food,” she said. “We increased our turkey order, and we’re just going to serve until the food’s gone.”
That was a reality for many back in March, according to Mounts, after people started getting laid off and “before the stimulus kicked in.” She said the mission had closed its thrift stores, and instead used them as pop-up pantries. They delivered more than 4,000 bags of food to people in need throughout the region.
“There were people who told us they’ve never been in a food line before,” Mounts said.
She said she’s not sure if the need will still be that great over the holiday this year.
“I do know there will always be people who need a meal, and we’d like to provide it if we can,” Mounts said.