“How you doin’ sugar? Happy Thanksgiving!” Associate Pastor Lynn Carter said as Diana Dean fixed a plate of leftovers from the buffet to take with her. “You keeping out of trouble?” she joked.
“Yep,” replied Ms. Dean.
“Did you get enough to eat?”
“Yes,” Ms. Dean said yesterday, bundled up in a blue LL Bean jacket and baseball cap, her Safeway bag full of a mix of items, and now the food. She said, “I come at five o’clock everyday.”
Thirteen turkeys cooked, pounds of canned green beans, trays and trays of mashed potatoes and stuffing with quarts of gravy. Diners served themselves or were served by others at the long buffet table, then sat at the tables that held about 150 people.
For the people who organized and ran the Thanksgiving meal yesterday at the Arlington Assembly of God church at 4501 N. Pershing Dr., the 20-year tradition is “a special day” but for the past six years has been but one of the 200-plus dinners they serve weeknights, from 5:00 to 6:30p.m.
It’s a hot meal every night, with homemade soup on Wednesdays. Summer is usually the slowest because people can find work then, said Janet Tyson who runs the kitchen and is the mother of Ms. Carter. Fall always has more than summer, but this year it’s a little worse, as other providers have found.
Arlington Food Assistance Center on its web site reported that they served 1,038 families each week between July of last year and June of this year, handing out 2.2 million pounds of food. Their October newsletter reported, “Our current average of over 1,200 families means we’re serving about 3,500 individuals—2,200 adults and 1,300 children—each week.”
Ms. Tyson concurred.
“We’ve noticed this fall it’s picked up,” she said, adding they average about 100 to 110 people each evening, based on the number of clean plates taken.
“One time last year, we had 157, and that was the highest,” Ms. Tyson said.
Although it started primarily with the church providing the food, they have gotten guidance from the county government and from programs such as AFAC which eventually led the church to area restaurants.
Now, the church gets unused food regularly from area Chipotle restaurants, and desserts from Safeway grocery stores. That has made life much easier on Ms. Tyson, she said. And the food fits the largely Latino dinner guests.
It is all run by volunteers, some from the church, others from the rest of the community.
“I come up here and help when I can,” said Ray Skinner a native of Arlington who lives in Springfield. He is a tall man whose brindled dog “Tigger” snaked around the human- and chair-legs on Thanksgiving. “I needed something to do in the evenings besides watch TV and drink beer.” He said he goes to the church because they helped him find work. The people "pray for me, not on me," he joked. The church has as many as 200 people attending Sunday services and about 150 members, Ms. Carter said.
Mr. Skinner is quick to say that some of the people who come for the meals are looking for handouts, do not want to work, or like sleeping on the streets. But he said they cannot be helped if they are physically unhealthy, and a hot, wholesome meal can help with that.
“We’re going to help them get healthy first,” he said.
The meals might be pulled pork from Chipotle on hamburger buns with rice and beans, a tossed salad, and something sweet for dessert. Other times, they will spice up that same food from Chipotle and make it teriyaki or something else fun and different. Usually the church has enough food for people to take some to go.
However, the church’s mealtime has seen some growing pains when in the spring of last year, Ms. Carter met with community leaders, police and people from the Chatham condominium, about diners who were trespassing and panhandling on Chatham property.
Still, Ms. Carter clearly sees it as part of the church’s calling, saying, “The people of the church are wonderful” and have generously given food or money over the years.
But she aims her sights higher than that, too. They have been able to help the homeless and hungry over the years because, “The Lord just provides.”
Lost Civilizations