It's Worth It

We have our first Leaders Meeting in August. 

We begin contacting last years volunteers.

We start sign ups the first of October.

But the Monday before Thanksgiving is when all the hard work really begins.

The kitchen begins prep work to feed more than 1200 people.

 

 The decorations go up all throughout the building

The dining room is filled with tables and it's my job to make sure they're spaced well enough for the servers to get through. Plus there has to be room for the giant food carts to get through, and people in wheel chairs, and service animals...

Once that's done we put all the chairs around and volunteers come in to decorate all the tables. 

 Then there's all the little details like making sure each serving station has brooms and gloves, water pitchers, serving utensils, rolling trashcans and anything they might need throughout the day.

When Thursday morning arrives everything kicks into high gear.

The teams of volunteers begin to arrive -

The Transportation Team shuttles people to and from the church and Beth rides along with Chuck as a greeter

This is the pastor who oversees the entire event and his wife who does all the work. 😁 During the Thanksgiving season she's known as 'Mumsy Pumpkin'. One of these days I'll have to find out how she got that name! They both give so much and they make you feel truly loved. Sincerely two of the best people I know.

This is the third year I've been in charge of the Busers and Servers which means I oversee the entire dining room.

Room set up

Serving stations

Section leaders 

All 120 Busers and Servers

Delivery of the food 

The guests

Just some of the Busers and Servers

Once all the teams are in place, we open the doors and the guests start pouring in!

Then the food is brought out on 4 large carts, one for each section. We deliver it to the tables and the table host serves everyone family-style.

 

 Mumsy always gets an incredible speaker who does puppets and balloon animals and entertains the kids while sharing the gospel. We had over 80 people raise their hands for prayer on Thursday.

After everyone leaves, we clean the tables and do it all again!

And again!

 We have three seatings every year and boy are we exhausted by the end of the day! Then the clean up crew shows up and before you know it, everything is put away and it's time to go home.

Being my first year as head of the custodial department (my day job) I had to stay until the very last person left. I made sure all the doors were locked and the lights turned out and then I set the alarm and headed to my car. I locked the parking lot gates and headed home. 

(I will admit, I'm glad it's over!)

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!