How We've Changed

2021 Distribution

Everything has changed in our world, and Thanksgiving is no exception.

At our emergency planning meeting we quickly came to a consensus that we could not have the same type of Thanksgiving meal with a few hundred people from a few dozen churches and all over the county cooking sides and a few hundred people gathering to pack meals and another few hundred gathering to deliver them to about 5% of the total county population like they've done for the past quarter of a century.

That left us with a choice of just going to the house and being content with what we'd done in the past or of coming up with something new.

A few phone calls, a few virtual meetings, a few more planning meetings and we now have a plan in place.

We will need your help this year, but it will be safe and social distanced and it won't involve cooking and you will have your entire Thanksgiving to yourself - something that some of us can hardly remember and that some of our children have never known.

We have partnered with 2nd Harvest and they will be providing us with 800 food packages that will be a combination of canned and dry goods, some sort of fresh foods or produce, and some type of meat or dairy. They're still working on what they will be able to provide.

Those 800 will be delivered to Cedar Hill on Friday, November 20th, and we will need your help to get those delivered to families on Saturday, November 21st.

We will be using the same phone and online reservation system as always or people may come by and pick up a food package.

Since a food package will be two or three boxes, you probably won't be able to deliver to as many homes as some you are used to, so we'll probably need more delivery drivers than usual.

You won't be gathering in the sanctuary this year. Instead, just come to the parking lot and stay in your cars and we'll come to you with your route. There should be plenty of room because we won't need the couple of hundred people who are usually there packing meals and making gravy and bagging drinks and doing all the preparation work.

We will need people to help load the cars as usual, so the packing team will need to be there that Saturday.

We'll figure out the starting times when we see how many deliveries we have and have a better idea of how many routes there will be, but everything should flow quickly and smoothly because we won't have to worry about running out of anything.

If you're delivering this year, it would be a great time to bring a truck or a van or a church van or something big. This isn't the year to deliver in a yellow midlife crisis Mustang or some squashed up little sporty car or a crammed to the gills with everything you own case manager social worker car because there's going to be more to deliver than usual.

Every year we get a few calls from some older or sicker folks who really don't need a food box because they leave a message about how appreciative they are for the meal because they're no longer able to cook and the only way they'll have Thanksgiving is if we bring it to them.

If you would be interested in sharing some of your own Thanksgiving meal with these calls, please let us know in advance so we can share their contact information with you. Otherwise we'll have to call them back and let them know that we just can't help them this year.

Watch here and on our Facebook page for more details as they become available.