Brownstown churches work together to provide free holiday meals

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BROWNSTOWN — Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green beans, bread and a dessert were provided in Thanksgiving meals for free to Jackson County residents.

That was done through the efforts of New Life Missionary Baptist Church and Community Church Brownstown on Wednesday night.

Between last-minute walk-ups and prearranged deliveries all over the county, the churches provided a total of 832 meals to county residents over the span of three hours on the eve of the big holiday, said Missy Collins, a member of Community Church Brownstown and one of the event’s organizers.

That was a sizeable increase from the 726 that the churches handed out on the same night last year.

“It was an extremely busy night, but we kind of knew it was going to be a little crazy,” she said.

Collins, a Brownstown resident, began giving out free meals in the community 13 years ago as part of an Ivy Tech Community College class project.

Though her goal was to give out around 1,000 meals, the more than 800 distributed kept the team of volunteers quite busy throughout the night. Mike Weiler, pastor of New Life Missionary Baptist Church, said his last volunteer to head home left the church at around 9:30 p.m. after getting things cleaned up.

In fact, so many meals were being given out that both churches had to scramble to fulfill orders at different points after running low on different items or out of others entirely.

“We were actually running low on things and had to make a run to JayC,” Weiler said.

“We actually ran out of turkey this year. We ended up serving fried chicken and ham with some of the meals as a substitute,” Collins said.

These churches are able to hand out hundreds of free holiday meals each year because of the generosity of the local community, which comes together to provide money, supplies and time to help out.

Both Collins and Weiler were thankful to those who donated to the cause this year as well as the efforts of the volunteers, who all ultimately came together to help get the 800-plus meals throughout the county.

“We had a lot of people who donated, both food and monetarily, people that saw a need and stepped up to help,” Weiler said.

“This was the first year that we felt sure we’d be able to get to them all because the donations covered what we needed,” Collins said. “Everything was greatly appreciated. We were able to provide meals for a lot of people in need and help bless a lot of people, and that’s why we do this every year.”

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