By Portia Williams
WHEELERSBURG —Wheelersburg High School Cafetorium was overflowing Saturday afternoon with the warmth that giving, loving, and serving creates. The 12th annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner was held, hosted by four local churches.
Pastor Perry Prosch of Wheelersburg UMC, said the churches, volunteers and supporting sponsors makes it possible for them to serve no less than 1,000 people.
“Today is our 12th annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner here in Wheelersburg. There are four churches now coming together, which is Wheelerburg United Methodist, also St. John Lutheran Church, Saint Peter in Chains Catholic Church, and new for this year is Haverhill United Methodist,” Prosch said.Volunteers from all of these churches are here, dozens and dozens of them to help serve, prepare, clean up. We have a lot of partners, the Wheelersburg Schools, Pepsi, Kroger, Deemer’s, Valley Foods helps us, and we are going to serve about 1,000 meals, and we will serve more food than we ever have, there is no question about it.”
Another accommodating feature of the Community Dinner is delivery to the sick and shut in, those who are not able to make it to the facility to enjoy the meal.
“Here in Wheelersburg we are all about community, and this is one way that the churches can serve the community, help others in need as well, and fellowship together and do a project together as an ecumenical group of churches,” he said.
The Community Dinner is not the end, on Sunday, Nov. 22, the four churches will come together again for a worship service.
“The four churches have a service, and this year it is at Saint Peter in Chains Catholic Church. We have been doing the service longer than we have been doing the dinner,” he said. “About 12 years ago, I preached and I challenged them the next year to do this dinner, and so 12 years ago I challenged them as a community to do something for our community. This dinner has grown from 75 people to 1,000.”
He said Wheelersburg High School involvement enhanced their efforts tremendously.
“Once we went to the school the numbers just shot up exponentially, and allowed us to be able to serve more people,” he said. “With everybody coming together now when we see each other on the street, we know each other a lot better through this, and that is one thing ecumenically is that we can come together and do this.”
He said each of the churches look forward to continuing the dinner and services for many years to come. To make a donation towards the future Community Thanksgiving Dinners, contact one of the four churches aforementioned.
Reach Portia Williams at 740-353-3101, ext. 1929, or on Twitter @PortiaWillPDT.
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