In-person Thanksgiving dinners resume after COVID-19 pause

By Tim Puet
For The Catholic Times

After being forced to limit its Thanksgiving food distribution to takeout orders in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, “we’re all in” for a traditional sit-down dinner on Thanksgiving Day at Columbus St. Aloysius Church, said Sandy Bonneville, in her 22nd year as coordinator for the event.

“We adjusted to last year’s situation well and distributed about 700 meals to people we visited or who came here to pick up food, but having everyone back this year will be so much better,” Bonneville said. 

“Thanksgiving is a time for family, whether it’s your own family or the family a person finds through church and community. Over the years, this dinner has created a family of its own of people who see each other once a year and who have formed many lasting friendships as a result. This will be a wonderful reunion after a year different from anything we’ve seen.

“We will be feeding with care, spacing the seating to meet safe-distancing requirements. All our volunteers will be wearing masks, and we’ll have plenty of hand sanitizer.” The dinner will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 25 in the family center of the church, located at 2165 W. Broad St. in Columbus’ Hilltop neighborhood. 

Everyone in attendance will receive a bag of groceries and other essentials to take home. Besides meals served at the church, volunteers from Catholic Social Services (CSS), coordinated by CSS staff member Peggy Sirbaugh, will deliver meals to the homebound. Meals also will be distributed to homeless camps near the church.

CSS was unable to participate in last year’s dinner because of COVID, but the deliveries were handled by volunteers from the three Hilltop parishes – St. Aloysius, St. Agnes and St. Mary Magdalene. Those parishes provide most of the workers for the dinner.

Bonneville said 50 turkeys are being donated by the Fry Out Cancer organization at Ohio State University’s Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital, where Bonneville’s son, Dr. Russell Bonneville, a third-year medical student, is on a team looking at new treatment approaches for advanced lung cancer. Dr. Bonneville, 30, has volunteered  since he was a young child at the dinner, joining his mother and his father, Russell Bonneville Jr., who until his death in 2017 played a key role in the event. 

The dinner was founded more than 40 years ago by parishioner Steve Joyce, with Sandy Bonneville taking over when he became ill. She said considerable help also has been provided by Lisa O’Connell Paccioretti of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and Warren and Joann Wright of the diocesan St. Vincent de Paul Society.

Besides hosting the Thanksgiving dinner, the St. Aloysius community outreach committee has been distributing food every Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. in the church parking lot. Because Christmas is on a Saturday this year, the distribution that would have been that day will be on Friday, Dec. 24. 

Bonneville hopes that the committee in 2022 can resume the monthly Sunday-afternoon community dinners it formerly sponsored. It also recently distributed about 100 coats, plus socks and other clothing, to residents of the homeless camps.

“Our food distribution is a bridge to seeing people’s other needs and helping them,” Bonneville said. “The Hilltop is a low-income area, but what I see here is a tapestry of poverty stitched together by God. 

“Each part of the tapestry represents someone with a different need – whether it’s a person who has lost a job, someone who’s been released from prison, another person who has lived here for years and now the rent has become too high because of the gentrification the area is going through, or those who are just down on their luck in general. 

“We’re here to serve God through His people – as Pope Francis has said, ‘to live with the smell of the sheep’ and to accompany them and learn their needs. From the pew to the pavement to the people – that’s how real worship occurs.”

Several parishes throughout the Diocese of Columbus also will share their blessings with others during the Thanksgiving season.  

The Community Kitchen at the St. John Center, 640 S. Ohio Ave., next to Columbus Holy Rosary-St. John Church, won’t be serving dinner on-site for the second straight year because of the pandemic, but it will provide takeout meals from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thanksgiving Day, said MJ McCleskey of the center staff. 

Many of the turkeys for those dinners will come from the 24th annual “Bring a Turkey to Church” weekend at Westerville St. Paul Church, 313 N. State St., which will take place on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 20 and 21. 

The New Albany Church of the Resurrection, 6300 E. Dublin-Granville Road, is collecting turkeys on Nov. 20 and 21 outside its ministry center, where a large truck to receive the items will be parked. The program is in its 14th year. Last year, it collected 527 frozen turkeys and more than $10,000, breaking past records despite the pandemic.

St. Vincent Family Services is collecting donations to support Thanksgiving meals for families in its care who are most in need. St. Vincent Family Services is a 150-year-old organization that was founded as an orphanage on the near east side of Columbus and today continues to be deeply rooted in a mission of supporting the well-being, safety and social-emotional health needs of children and their families across Ohio. 

Gifts will directly support warm Thanksgiving meals for approximately 100 St. Vincent foster families and clients in its care. Gifts may be made online at http://www.svfsohio.org or sent to St. Vincent Family Services, 1490 E. Main St., Columbus OH 43205.

The Joint Organization for Inner-City Needs, a diocesan agency at 578 E. Main St., Columbus, that serves the city and Franklin County, will receive 200 boxes of food for distribution from the Byron Saunders Foundation, a central Ohio organization that provides Thanksgiving meals annually to families in need. Grocery cards for $20 will be included in the boxes. 

The St. Francis Evangelization Center at 404 W. South St. in McArthur doesn’t host a Thanksgiving Day dinner because it lacks the room, but it gives about 500 Vinton County families a chance to have a holiday dinner at home through its annual Turkey Toss program. Eligible families come to the center and receive $40 food vouchers for use at Campbell’s Market in McArthur, the county’s only full-service grocery. The cards are donated through a partnership with the center’s supporters and the CARE United Methodist Outreach. 

The St. Vincent de Paul Society of Logan St. John Church, 351 N. Market St., will distribute Thanksgiving baskets including turkey and other food to the needy at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 21.

Sunbury St. John Neumann Church, 9633 E. State Route 37, is part of a Christmas box drive sponsored by Big Walnut Friends Who Share, an outreach organization of churches in the Sunbury and Galena areas. 

The parish’s St. Vincent de Paul Society and Knights of Columbus Council 1458 are collecting tubs of cake frosting and 40-ounce cans of sweet potatoes for a Christmas meal that includes a ham. Other churches in the organization are collecting other items for the meal. Anyone attending the church’s Thanksgiving Mass at 9 a.m. Nov. 25 is asked to bring canned or boxed foods for the Friends Who Share pantry. 

West Jefferson Sts. Simon and Jude Church, 9350 High Free Pike, is putting together about 125 containers of instant mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing and collecting monetary donations for meat for the community’s Good Samaritan Food Pantry. 

The pantry at Columbus St. James the Less Church, 1652 Oakland Park Ave., will be distributing more than 400 two-box food baskets for Thanksgiving. 

The St. Vincent de Paul Society of Columbus Holy Spirit Church, 4383 E. Broad St., is hosting a drive-thru holiday meal on Sunday afternoon, Dec. 5. It will include turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and other items. Families also will receive a bag of personal-care items, including personal-hygiene items, household goods, hats, gloves and socks, plus cards for gifts and groceries. Bags will be distributed to families who cannot come to church. 

Zoar Holy Trinity Church, 1835 Dover-Zoar Road N.E., in cooperation with the Tuscarawas Valley Ministerial Association, will distribute dinners on Nov. 21 to homes, workplaces, domestic violence shelters, firehouses and hospices. The dinners will be prepared at the church and will include turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, dressing, cranberry salad and pie.

New Lexington St. Rose Church, 309 N. Main St., is sponsoring its annual Turkey Trot 5-kilometer run or walk at 9 a.m. Nov. 25 in the parking lot of its former school at 119 W. Water St. Registration is $25 on the day of the race. 

Zanesville St. Thomas Aquinas Church, 144 N. 5th St., will collect donations for its pantry at Masses on the weekend of Nov. 20 and 21 and in its office from Nov. 22 to 24.

Sugar Grove St. Joseph Church, 308 Elm St., will host the town’s 29th annual Thanksgiving service at 6 p.m. Nov. 21. The service rotates among St. Joseph and Sugar Grove’s Methodist and Lutheran churches.