BROWNSTOWN — On the eve of Thanksgiving, the congregations of two Brownstown churches wanted to make sure they had done their fair share of giving this year.

Through the effort, spearheaded by Community Church of Brownstown and New Life Missionary Church, volunteers came together to make and distribute 726 Thanksgiving meals to those in need in the community.

The act of generosity started started a dozen years ago when Brownstown resident Melissa Collins decided she wanted to give out meals as a part of a project for a class at Ivy Tech Community College.

She currently attends New Life Missionary Baptist Church at 709 W. Bridge St., and to this day, Collins is gracious to be providing food to families across all of Jackson County for Thanksgiving.

“It’s really neat to watch God work in the ways of hands and feet and feed the community,” she said. “It’s been a true blessing to be able to do that.”

Before the 5 p.m. time that churches started distributing the Thanksgiving dinners, Collins said the volunteers had 400 meals prepared and that wasn’t even halfway through how many she was expecting to make.

The meals consisted of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green beans and bread with butter. Families interested in receiving a meal were able to eat inside of the Community Church of Brownstown, pick one up from either church or have meals delivered to their homes.

Collins said she was blessed to be able to see the amount of meals given out over the years. One Thanksgiving, 1,300 dinners were provided to those in need in the community.

Michael Weiler, pastor for New Life Missionary Baptist Church, said he’s helped prepare and distribute the Thanksgiving meals since 2017.

He said giving back is a highlight of his Thanksgiving.

“It’s a blessing,” Weiler said. “It really is. It’s an opportunity to give back and be thankful for what we get.”

Weiler’s favorite part of the Thanksgiving giveaways is seeing people be thankful for the food, and also the camaraderie of seeing his church family come together.

“I think that there’s a lot of people that are shut in and not able to get out,” he said. “With the COVID-19 pandemic a lot of people don’t want to get out so this is an opportunity to give them a meal.”

Last year the church was able to give out about 700 meals. Weiler said he was amazed that they were able to provide as many meals as they did during the pandemi.

The Brownstown pastor said he looks forward to providing meals every year and plans to be a part of the project as long as he’s still with the church.

“It’s great to be able to use God’s house to be able to deliver it all out,” Weiler said.

At the Community Church of Brownstown, located at 709 W. Bridge St., Karen Branaman helped facilitate the preparation of the meals. She said she’s helped give out meals with the churches for five years.

Before families arrived at the church, Branaman said 172 meals were packaged to be sent to Hoosier Christian Village in Brownstown for both residents and staff.

Branaman said the church was providing a service for people who might not be able to afford or able to cook.

“It’s just nice to see the look on a family’s face when you go and deliver their meals or when they’re able to come in and sit down in an atmosphere with loving people and have a meal,” she said. “Honestly we get the bigger blessing. All of us say “‘We get the bigger blessing.’”

The community service doesn’t end on Thanksgiving for Branaman. She said doesn’t plan to stop providing meals for Thanksgiving and the church wants to be able to provide food on Christmas and Valentine’s Day too.

Inspired to continue to serve the community, Branaman said she started an outreach ministry with Collins called MOM, which stands for “Mobile Outreach Ministry.” The mission of MOM was to deliver food directly to homes.

Branaman explained the meaning behind the ministry’s name.

“When you need something, who do you call?” she said.

The Community Church of Brownstown recently received a new pastor, Mitch Patrick. He is being ordained and installed this Sunday.

His wife Lisa helped get meals together and said it was “amazing” to provide for the community while getting acclimated with the church.

She said she’s never done charitable work around Thanksgiving and looks forward to doing it again next year.