Parishes and service agencies throughout the diocese will be conducting their traditional outreach efforts for those in need during the Thanksgiving season, providing dinners and donating food baskets on the holiday itself – Thursday, Nov. 23 – and the days surrounding it.
The Thanksgiving Day dinner at Columbus St. Aloysius Church is one of the longest running of these events, going back to the early 1970s. No one putting it together can remember just when it started, said Sandy Bonneville, the event’s coordinator for 27 years and a volunteer for many years before that.
“It just keeps going,” she said. “Every year, I wonder where everything is going to come from, and every year, like magic and with the help of plenty of volunteers, things come together.
“This year, we’re getting a lot of help from Ghanian Catholics whose weekly Mass has been moved to St. Aloysius because of the closing of Columbus St. Anthony Church, where they had worshiped for many years. They’re enthusiastic that St. Al’s has adopted them and look forward to helping others in the way many of them were helped as they settled here.”
Bonneville anticipates again serving about 1,000 dinners at the parish, via takeout, to homebound people with help from Catholic Social Services and to people living on the streets or in camps in the Hilltop and Franklinton neighborhoods of Columbus’ west side.
“People who live in our neighborhood may never attend church, but through the dinner and our Taking It to the Streets ministry, they know how much the Church cares for them,” Bonneville said. “They need us, but we need them just as much.
“This is a great way to evangelize the way Pope Francis wants us to – as he says, ‘to smell the sheep’ – and it’s a wonderful opportunity for all types of people to come together, to be warm for a few hours and not worry what anyone’s wearing.
“As in Jesus’ parables, it’s a banquet where all are invited. People may be hesitant or embarrassed about coming, but we want them to. The church hall is packed, but there’s always room for more.”
The St. Aloysius dinner will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Nov. 23. Besides being served a complete meal, all in attendance will receive a bag of groceries and other essentials from the Mid-Ohio Food Collective and individual donors. Winter coats and other clothing also will be available. The Columbus Folk Music Society will provide entertainment, as it has most years since 2014.
About 50 turkeys will be provided through donations to the Fry Out Cancer organization, which since 2014 has donated more than $185,000 from turkey sales to the James Cancer Research Hospital and Solove Research Institute at Ohio State University (OSU) and to Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Fry Out Cancer is led by Matt Freedman of New Albany and Dr. Sameek Roychowdhury of the James, who was a mentor to Bonneville’s son, Russell Bonneville Jr., who completed his medical studies at OSU last year and is doing research at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Bonneville will return to help his mother at the dinner, as he has since childhood. His father, Russell Bonneville Sr., played a key role at the event until his death in 2017.
Pies will be provided for the first time by The Martha Circle, a women’s group affiliated with The Catholic Foundation.
Besides sponsoring the Thanksgiving dinner, the community outreach committee of St. Aloysius and its west side neighbor, Columbus St. Mary Magdalene Church, distribute hot meals along Sullivant Avenue and other principal streets of Franklinton and the Hilltop several times a month as part of its Taking It to the Streets program.
“We take our faith from the pulpit to the pew to the pavement,” Sandy Bonneville said.
The Community Kitchen at the St. John Center, 640 S. Ohio Ave., next to Columbus Holy Rosary-St. John Church, will serve dinner in its dining room on Thanksgiving Day from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., said staff member Allison Gaiters.
Columbus St. Dominic Church, 453 N. 20th St., will distribute Thanksgiving food boxes beginning at 1 p.m. Monday, Nov. 20 to anyone requesting them. The boxes will include turkey, cornbread muffin mix, boxed stuffing, fresh produce and canned cranberries, vegetables and gravy.
Many of the turkeys for the Community Kitchen will come from the 26th annual “Bring a Turkey to Church” weekend at Westerville St. Paul Church, 313 N. State St., which will take place after all Masses Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 18 and 19. In the past 25 years, the parish has collected more than 8,700 turkeys, including 538 last year, as well as $26,873 in cash, including $4,240 last year.
Large containers of Thanksgiving-related food and cash donations for the Community Kitchen also will be donated this weekend. In recent years, enough turkeys have been collected to allow the kitchen to distribute the excess to other agencies serving needy families.
The New Albany Church of the Resurrection, 6300 E. Dublin-Granville Road, is collecting turkeys for the 16th year for Columbus St. Dominic and St. James the Less churches. A large truck to receive the items will be parked outside the parish ministry center on Nov. 18 and 19. Last year, the parish collected 407 turkeys and more than $5,000.
The Joint Organization for Inner-City Needs (JOIN), a diocesan agency at 578 E. Main St., Columbus, that serves the city and Franklin County, will receive 250 boxes of food for distribution from the Byron Saunders Foundation, a central Ohio organization that provides Thanksgiving meals annually to families in need, said JOIN director Lisa Keita.
The St. Francis Evangelization Center, 404 W. South St., McArthur, doesn’t have room to host a Thanksgiving dinner but gives about 500 Vinton County families a chance to have a family 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, said center director Ashley Riegel.
The St. Vincent de Paul pantry at Logan St. John Church, 351 N. Market St., will distribute baskets with holiday dinner items and gift cards on Nov. 19 from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. to families who have registered.
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 of churches in the Sunbury and Galena areas.
The parish is collecting canned potatoes for a Christmas meal, with other churches collecting other items. Anyone attending the church’s 9 a.m. Thanksgiving Day Mass is asked to bring canned or boxed foods for Friends Who Share.
West Jefferson Sts. Simon and Jude Church, 9350 High Free Pike, is putting together 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 distribute nearly 400 two-box food baskets for Thanksgiving, said pantry manager Pat Woods. One box will contain turkey, produce, bread and eggs with nonperishable items in the other. She said the items are donated by the Church of the Resurrection and several other parishes and by Columbus St. Francis DeSales High School students.
Zoar Holy Trinity Church, 1835 Dover-Zoar Road N.E., in cooperation with the Tuscarawas Valley Ministerial Association, will distribute dinners on Nov. 19 to homes, workplaces, domestic violence shelters, firehouses and hospices. The dinners will be prepared at the church and 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. Thanksgiving Day in the parking lot of its former school at 119 W. Water St. Registration is $25 on the day of the race.
Both Zanesville parishes will collect food for the holidays at Masses during the Thanksgiving period. The collection at St. Nicholas Church, 955 E, Main St., will be at the 9 a.m. Thanksgiving Day Mass, while at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, 144 N. 5th St., it will take place at Masses on the weekend of Nov. 18 and 19 and in its office from Nov. 20 to 22.
Circleville St. Joseph Church, 134 W. Mound St., is offering its 39th annual Thanksgiving dinner for home delivery or carryout only. Pickaway County residents who call the church at (740) 477-2549 by Tuesday, Nov. 21 will have dinner delivered to their homes between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. Dinners also will be delivered at the same time on Christmas Day. The registration deadline is Friday, Dec. 22.
The Scioto Catholic Community will serve dinner from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day at the Holy Redeemer Activity Center, 1325 Gallia St. Carryout is available for those unable to attend.
St. Vincent Family Services is collecting donations to support Thanksgiving meals for approximately 100 families and clients in its care, said Catherine Sherman of St. Vincent. It also is running its annual Adopt A Family program, in which families or individuals receive information on a needy family, shop for items on the family’s wish list, wrap and label the gifts and deliver them to the St. Vincent Family Center on a specified time and date.
This year’s delivery dates range from Thursday to Saturday, Dec. 7 to 9.
To apply as a gift giver, go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MQ2K3ZM. Monetary gifts may be made at any time online at www.svfs.ohio.org or sent to St. Vincent Family Services, 1490 E. Main St., Columbus, Ohio 43205.
