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‘An enormous amount of love’: Volunteers host Thanksgiving meals for more than 1,000 local residents

By Rachel Foor 5 min read

Thanksgiving is a time when many people take stock of their lives, consider what they're thankful for and enjoy time with their family.

This past week, volunteers with Center City Church served two Thanksgiving meals -- on Sunday and Tuesday -- where more than 1,000 people gathered to share the holiday meal with acquaintances both old and new.

Michael Yeager, a father of seven, is thankful for the new job he got with the local carpenters union, Union 423.

"It's really busy," Yeager said. "They have a lot of apprentices joining up, and we have contractors asking for more people."

He is meeting up with family at King of Prussia today, he said, noting that he is one of 16 siblings and his wife is one of 10.

That means their children have about 50 cousins, he said.

"I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year," Yeager said.

Participants at both events hosted by the church said they were most thankful this year for their health and family, with Jovelina Riley stating she is also grateful for the church and how it reaches out to the community.

Riley, originally of Sao Paolo, Brazil, has lived in the United States for 14 years and said she loves Thanksgiving celebrations.

"I fell in love with decorations here in America and the way they gather around the table," she said. She appreciates the family unity and saying what they're thankful for.

"Everyone brings prepared dishes; I love that," she said of the traditional Thanksgiving gatherings.

Riley said she is most thankful for her husband and the Center City Church congregation because of the way they embraced her into the community. She said she came to the United States speaking only Portuguese, but that they "didn't look at me weird."

"So many people had the patience to try to make me understand, the love," Riley said. "Nobody treated me strange."

Church member Leena Ramos, who was serving food and socializing, said that she's always loved giving back.

"It's just an honor to be able to see the growth that the pastor and church has gone through," Ramos said.

The Free Community Thanksgiving Dinner Program got its start in 2000 at the Joshua House, a nonprofit youth outreach in Tyrone, Center City Church Pastor Jim Kilmartin said.

"It was just for the teenage kids," Kilmartin said. "We had a ping pong table and a pool table and that's what we would have our Thanksgiving dinner on."

Kilmartin said today the program is open to anyone seeking fellowship.

"To see the older to the middle aged to the younger come together -- it's an amazing thing," Kilmartin said.

The program made the move to Altoona in 2020, coordinator Wendy Wiles said, when it served about 321 people in their church's fellowship hall. In 2021, the event was moved to the Heritage Discovery Center to accommodate the increasing number of participants.

"We just have an enormous amount of love, and people want to be where they're loved," Wiles said of the program's success.

Wiles said that last year, the church served 832 people, so this year it made enough food for 1,000.

All of the food was donated by the Blair County Food Drive.

"Without the Blair County Food Drive or Denise Stone, we wouldn't be able to do this," Wiles said.

To prepare for such a large event and such a large crowd, Wiles said that the volunteers have their first meeting three months ahead of time.

"It takes an army," Wiles said. "When the food rolls out, it's go-time."

The 90 volunteers start cooking at the Discovery Center the morning of the dinner, using 40 roasters to cook 30 turkeys and 30 hams, Wiles said.

"We collect it from the community and cook it and turn it around to give back to the community," he explained.

When asked what she thought was behind the success of the event, Wiles said that last year, the big comment was that, after the COVID-19 pandemic, it was meaningful for people "to be able to have a place to come and sit with others."

On Sunday, the smaller international Thanksgiving dinner was held by the Center City College Group, which aimed to embrace the students at Penn State Altoona's campus that couldn't go home for the week, said co-organizer Brook Detweiler.

"It's fun to acknowledge other cultures," Detweiler said. "It's not just a traditional Thanksgiving dinner."

Aiden White, who also helped put the event together, says the international dinner means a lot to him because of a similar event he took part in while in Baltimore.

"We held a mass dinner down there," White said. "I saw how it blessed them and I wanted to do it here."

Detweiler and White said they hope next year's event grows to include Altoona's entire international community.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.

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