God’s Storehouse Gives Thanksgiving Dinners To Over 1,000 in Community
Courtesy of God’s Storehouse
On Wednesday, November 22, God’s Storehouse resumed its community Thanksgiving Dinner giveaway. They were forced to skip a year because the Storehouse had to relocate to a temporary facility at New Life Church of Vidalia at 2200 Center Drive. The preparation for the meal was made even more challenging because the kitchen in the new Storehouse is a small galley style kitchen. They brought their convection oven with them and purchased many freezers for storage, so they decided to go ahead with the meal.
It all began one morning back in early October when the small staff of God’s Storehouse and some volunteers went to Randy Deloach's farm and gleaned his fields to fill a pickup truck with sweet potatoes. Every potato had to be peeled, boiled, and smashed. This later became the foundation for 60 full-length deep pans of sweet potato soufflé’.
Next, came the baking of 125 turkeys in a conventional oven that cooked 8 turkeys at a time. Sam Paige of Copper Construction, Inc. donated thousands of dollars for the turkeys, the pans, many ingredients, and 60 cakes. Sam, Tammy and their staff were so helpful. They took a list of needs provided by the Storehouse and go out and purchase and deliver many of the items on that list. Then the staff baked tray after tray of cornbread that became 60 pans of dressing. Ashley Crump and the children of J.D. Dickerson did a food drive to collect the Jiffy Cornbread Muffin mix and cans of cranberry. The dressing ingredients were mixed with the cornbread and baked at Vidalia Cornerstone Church’s kitchen the night before the dinner giveaway.
Dot. Foods Inc. stored the turkeys for them as they could only cook 24 a day. Dot Foods Inc. donated the green beans, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, and butter. They also made a significant financial donation and several of their employees volunteered to help serve the meal after delivering cases of food as a part of their Neighbor- to- Neighbor program. They are such a blessing to this community.
It was a community affair. Sally Meadows and J.R. Tripp schools also did canned-good drives. Sally Meadows heated up the turkey trays the morning of the event. Bo Herndon offered financial support and donated 30 pounds of pecans for the sweet potato soufflé’ topping. Volunteers and donations flowed in from churches and the private sector. Drivers were racing around town delivering plates to those without means to get to the Storehouse. There were so many people pitching in. Their names and organizations are too numerous to mention here.
The outcome was God Storehouse’s most successful Thanksgiving to date. They distributed 1,809 Thanksgiving dinners with turkey, sweet potato soufflé’, dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry, dinner roll, and a slice of cake. Director Tina M. Houser wanted to personally thank her staff of Betty, David, John, Wanda, and Bob who had been there with her through it all.
The event was intended to give to those who simply needed food or were not going to a traditional Thanksgiving meal with their families. It was intended to give everyone in our community something to be thankful for and to bring glory to God. It is evident from the outpouring of personal and corporate sacrifice that He is at work in our community. Praise and Honor and Glory to Him forever! Miss Tina wanted to extend heartfelt thanks and a Merry Christmas to all that were involved with this compassionate event.
