Volunteers prepare 136 dinners on Thanksgiving
A group of volunteers at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Cold Spring, continuing a tradition started by Tina Merando at Our Lady of Loretto, assembled 136 meals on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 26) for families in need and homebound older residents. Local restaurants also donated meals, and about 500 people were fed.
Vinnie Tamagna and Tara Sweet-Flagler organized the group, which included John, Luke and Madison Flagler; Christine, Ray and Phoebe Bokhour; Mike Smith; Heather Ferraira; and Jim Ely of Riverview Restaurant, who cooked turkeys.
Volunteer drivers, many of them from the Knights of Columbus, delivered 66 meals and another 70 were picked up.
Along with turkey, each meal included gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables, cranberry sauce, butternut squash soup, corn bread, pumpkin pie, a card handmade by students at Haldane, a prayer and reheating instructions.
Despite the pandemic, there is still so much to be thankful for this holiday season. We’d even contend that one of the greatest gifts resulting from a challenging year was a new perspective on the common things we’ve taken for granted.
While many people are struggling this holiday season, we joined together to make each other’s lives just a little bit better with the community Thanksgiving meal. For the lonely and isolated, reaching out brought the greatest gratitude, and maybe the message is as unassuming as “we are here, and we care about you.”
Thank you, Father Tom Lutz and the Knights of Columbus Council No. 536, the bedrock for the delivery brigade. Thank you to the Philipstown Reform Synagogue and Haldane Elementary. Thanks to Tara Sweet-Flagler, the coordinator, and our senior warden, Vinny Tamagna. And thank you to Jim and Lori Ely at Riverview Restaurant, who grew this event over the past decade and contributed their time and talent by cooking the turkey, stuffing, gravy and soup. We also acknowledge and thank the many other people and organizations in the village and town, too numerous to list here, who gave so generously.
As the German theologian, philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart said, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘Thank you,’ it will be enough.”
Schunk is the priest-in-charge at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.