by Marcia Wittmann, Food Ministry Team

On November 16, the Food Ministry team received this urgent request from Meghan Cubano, Director of Community Engagement at HomeFront: “Just throwing this out there in case UUCWC can come to the rescue. Our plans for distributing Thanksgiving meals to the two hundred families staying in motels have fallen through (at the 11th hour) so we’re reaching out to see if there’s any way you can help.”

With only a week until the donation deadline, what could we possibly do? As it turns out, a lot.

Home Front needed vegetable sides, juice, pies and cookies, and snacks such as fruit cups, applesauce, granola bars and chips, and breakfast items, to round out the turkey dinner, as well as provide food for the Thanksgiving weekend. We were not able to organize a large-scale food drive at the church on such short notice, but we spread the word out via Facebook, the weekly announcements, and email.

The congregation had recently donated over five hundred food items for Food Ministry’s Halloween Food Drive for HomeFront, and many members would be busy with Thanksgiving preparations, so it would have been understandable if the response had been sparse. But as always, UUCWC answered the call in a big — and big-hearted — way.

These are just some of the items that were donated by our members and friends:
• Nearly one hundred pounds of vegetable sides
• Two hundred loaves of cornbread
• Gallons of juice
• Dozens of mixed fruit and applesauce cups
• Hundreds of cookies
• Dozens of pies
• Many bags of miscellaneous self-stable items

Meghan’s follow-up email expresses just how much these UUCWC donations meant to our HomeFront neighbors in need:

“We are so grateful to you and the UUCWC members for stepping up and making sure Thanksgiving was special for ALL of our families. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Please extend my gratitude to the rest of the group. Happy holidays to you and yours!”