A Christmas Day tradition started by the owners of two Seymour eateries more than a decade ago may have had simple beginnings but now has grown into something much larger.

“It’s just such a great experience,” Brian “Bubba” D’Arco said. “Look at everybody that came out today.”

D’Arco, who owns Bubba’s Place with his wife, Jessica D’Arco, was referring to the two dozen or so volunteers who showed up at 6 a.m. Christmas Day at First Baptist Church in Seymour.

Their job was to prepare 2,000 or so meals of turkey or ham, green beans, mashed potatoes and a roll. Other volunteers were to deliver the meals Sunday afternoon to people at homes across Jackson and Jennings counties. Some of these meals also went to people who had to work on Christmas Day, including those at convenience stores, police officers, firemen, dispatchers and others.

“I wanted to make sure we get far enough ahead,” Bubba said of meal preparations. “We don’t want to get things bottlenecked. It is Christmas and everybody is volunteering their time. We want to be able to be as efficient as possible and get everything out the door.”

During the first year of the program back in 2011, somewhere between 300 and 400 meals were prepared and served from the kitchen at The Brooklyn Pizza Co., which is owned by Shawn and Jennifer Malone, Bubba said. The D’Arcos and Malones established the Christmas Day meal program that year.

Hot meals were served each Christmas Day until 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced a change to prepared meals in boxes.

This year, however, First Baptist Church offered its kitchen so hot meals could make a return to the menu.

While a solid core of volunteers has been onboard from the start, the church’s decision to allow the use of its kitchen has led to some new people stepping up and helping out.

One of those is Andre Pepper of Seymour. Pepper works in the kitchen for The Alley, which has been using the church’s kitchen to feed the hungry on a daily basis for a couple of years now.

“This is a great thing to be able to do for our fellow man,” said Pepper, who was a cook in the military.

“He’s our ringer,” Malone said. “We brought back a ton of our normal people, but we needed somebody who knows this kitchen because it’s huge.”

Richard O’Bier of Seymour, one of the new volunteers, spent part of his Christmas Day morning marking the carryout styrofoam dinner trays for either ham or turkey.

O’Bier said this was his first time to help out with the Christmas Day meals.

“Our church was involved in it, and I decided to get involved,” he said.

O’Bier said he wasn’t going to let the cold weather stop him from helping out.

“It warms the heart,” he said.

The cold weather failed to dampen the spirits of other helping out, as well.

“It was a little chilly,” Zach Thompson of Seymour said. “We had to do a few things outside than I would prefer to us, but it wasn’t too bad.”

Thompson, who been involved in every one of the Christmas meals, helped unload the rolls along with Shane Meek of Seymour, who also is a longtime helper.

Brent Gill also has been helping with the project from the beginning.

“I think it’s part of our civic duty,” the Seymour man said. “We’ve had a bountiful year, and we should give back to the community.”

Gill said before the cold meals were distributed in recent years, hot meals have been prepared at Brooklyn Pizza and The Pines, but he liked the kitchen at First Baptist Church.

“It’s bigger,” he said.

Richard Dockins of Uniontown, who was mashing potatoes along with Gill, said it’s the first time he had helped out.

“It’s definitely worth the time,” he said.

Bobby Kaufman of North Carolina was in town for the holidays visiting family and decided to help prepare meals with his mother, Melissa Westfall, and stepdad, Rick Westfall, of Seymour.

“I used to go here (First Baptist Church) and I decided to help out,” he said. “I am glad to do it. I am really good friends with Shawn and know Dr. J (First Baptist Church Pastor Jeremy Myers) since I was in high school.”

Andrew Botkin of Seymour also decided to help out for the first time this year and delivered the rolls to the church.

“I don’t have my kids on Christmas, so I told him (Shawn Malone) I had Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and if he had something, use me for what he needs,” Botkin said. “So I was here at 6 o’clock.”

Myers said the decision by the church to open the kitchen for the Christmas Day meals program was an easy one.

“It’s what we are about here at First Baptist Church,” he said.

Myers said any time the church can partner with other organizations to help out in the community, they are going to do so, and the cold over the Christmas weekend wasn’t going to stop the meal program from happening.

“There was never a thought about that,” he said.

Shawn Malone agreed.

At 7 a.m. Sunday, nearly 1,700 meals had been ordered.

“And more are coming in as we speak,” he said.

It’s hard to plan for preparing and delivering 2,000 meals, Malone said.

“We just try to do our best,” he said. “We buy a little surplus food, and that food will be divided equally among The Alley, Community Diner, Provisions Inc. With this facility, we have made up to about 2,000 meals now. If we need more, we are kind of on standby, but we can do more.”

Malone said during the pandemic, the number of requests for meals jumped almost 800.

“We know the need is still there, and we will find them today and folks will find us,” he said.

Myers said the idea to open the kitchen up for the Christmas Day program stemmed from the Malones, who are members of the church. The couple shared their story of organizing the Christmas Day meal program when they participated in a tradition of lighting an Advent candle during a service earlier in December.

“So Shawn and I have been talking about how we could partner because they have been doing a lot of the work over in the pizza shop and we have the kitchen,” he said. “So in talking with some of our leaders, we decided we would reach out and partner to help give them some space and some more volunteers.”