Volunteers Provide Meals And Blessings For Thousands On Thanksgiving Day

LEE COUNTY, MISS. (WCBI) – Thousands of people across Northeast Mississippi did not go hungry this holiday, thanks to volunteers at several outreaches.

At Harrisburg Baptist Church, volunteers were making plates to deliver to the Lee County Jail, and the homebound.

Bishop Clarence Parks is founder of “Christians on the Move to Evangelize” which organizes the feeding. He says it’s important to serve others everyday, but especially on a day set aside to give thanks.

“Because we have so much to be thankful for you give to other people to let them know that you appreciate them and also you appreciate life as a whole,” Bishop Parks said.

At the Anchor Church in Verona, Cars were picking up Thanksgiving lunches and other food in a drive through while inside, people were preparing more plates of food that would be taken to those in need throughout the area.

“We enjoy coming out and getting this stuff, we can really use it, because it is a big help to us,” said Larry Traylor, who received some lunches.

More than one hundred volunteers helped prepare and deliver 2,500 Thanksgiving lunches. Pastor David Ball says it’s all about helping others.

“It’s really important for the church now to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to represent Christ and that is filling the stomachs of people, it’s what Jesus would do, He would feed the hungry, take care of physical needs and then provide for the spiritual needs and sometimes we just want to take care of spiritual needs and we ignore the physical needs people have in the church, and that’s what God has called us to do,” Pastor Ball said.

During a typical year the community center at the Salvation Army would be full of people sitting down , inside, enjoying their Thanksgiving meal. This year looks a lot different, but the needs are still being met.

“We had to limit the amount of volunteers that could come into the facility so we had to streamline and make everything a little different as far as the process, the great news though is, is we met the need, as people called in and placed their orders, we had more than enough food to be able to handle the demand, and the volunteers showed up and did everything safe and perfect like we knew they would,” said Maj. Ray Morton.

Tracy Malone , along with her husband, sister, son, niece and nephew, were among the volunteers at the Salvation Army, making Thanksgiving dinners for pickup or delivery.

“There are many people out there who either don’t have someone to eat with or they don’t have the means to get here and pick up their food and there are many people who needed the extra help , so I think it’s really important for us to volunteer and give back to our own community and make sure people have what they need on Thanksgiving,” Malone said.

Each outreach takes an army of volunteers, who put in a lot of hard work and provide Thanksgiving Day blessings for those in need.

The three outreaches combined provided nearly five thousand Thanksgiving meals for people across the region.