CLEVELAND — Thanksgiving is a day usually spent with family, friends, and food, but some people, unfortunately, don’t have those things.
New Life at Calvary Church in Cleveland invited folks inside for its annual free Thanksgiving dinner Thursday.
Pastor Kellie Sullivan said they’ve hosted the dinner for six years.
This is the first one since the COVID-19 pandemic and it almost didn’t happen after the church member, also called covenant partner, in charge of cooking the meal suffered a fire in her garage while frying the turkeys. But amazingly, she still made it with the rest of the fixings so those in need could have full stomachs on Thanksgiving.
“That's the dedication of our covenant partners here at New Life at Calvary. We are tremendously blessed by the generosity of our people and they want to serve, they want to give, they want to help people and a lot of that comes from being helped themselves,” said Sullivan.
Covenant member Joy Williams has been volunteering at the dinner for three years.
“A lot of people don't have families. And since I come from a big family. I just always and my mother always taught us to help others,” said Williams.
Kathy Harrington shares the same love of volunteering. That’s why she was at the church this Thanksgiving helping out.
Harrington isn’t a covenant partner, but she found out about the volunteer opportunity through a conversation with another covenant partner who works at a local gas station.
“I really didn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving because I didn’t get invited anywhere so I thought I'll do this and then I'll go home and have a turkey dinner for myself,” said Harrington. “No one should go hungry period in this world, we have enough so and I mean, I know people are appreciative.”
If you weren’t able to make it out for New Life at Calvary’s Thanksgiving meal, they offer free, hot meals the last week of every month on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Also, on the third Saturday of every month, they give out free bags of groceries. There isn’t any registration required.
Jade Jarvis is a reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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