The annual community Thanksgiving meal, put on by St. Barnabas of the Valley Episcopal Church, is gearing up to feed more than 600 community members on Thanksgiving.
Though the sign-up for a meal via delivery or pickup closed on Monday, Rev. Douglas Bleyle told The Journal that they won’t turn anyone away who wishes for a meal.
The meal has been takeout or delivery only since COVID, Bleyle said.
The church, at 110 W. North St., and its volunteers will serve meals from noon to 2 p.m. Deliveries will start about 11:45 a.m. and could continue to 2 p.m. or 3 p.m., depending on how far the drivers have to go for their deliveries.
Though the official number of meals that have been requested have not been tallied for this year, Bleyle said that last year they served 580 people, up from more than 400 in 2022.
“This year, we are planning around 650,” Bleyle said.
The rise in meal participants is attributed partly to rising costs.
“Many media sources are saying many families aren’t even going to be able to, with their budgets, go $60 or $80 more on a grocery bill for a Thanksgiving meal,” Bleyle said. “We’ll see what comes, but we are planning on making sure we feed whoever needs it, and we’re at least prepped to go for 650 at this point.”
To pull off a meal of this scale, volunteers are paramount, and Bleyle noted that many volunteers have returned to from years past.
“It is a service to the wider community. It is what has been a long-standing understanding of following Christ, who we serve,” Bleyle said. “So, what I love about this is, Thanksgiving becomes an opportunity that the wider community pretty much becomes the central role in distributing the meals and volunteering, and that’s an important relationship.”
An assembly line of volunteers puts together the meals, which are then passed to an assembly line that puts the meal in a bag with pie and rolls and other sides before being taken to the patio where they are distributed.
The generosity of the community is something that Bleyle said stands out to him during the holiday season, particularly during the Thanksgiving meal.
“There’s a generosity of spirit that is really, really profound in Cortez,” Bleyle said. “I appreciate how people, even if they may not respect our particular articulation of theology … they just pause and say, ‘However, you’re doing what Jesus said. You’re feeding people … you’re actually doing what the Gospel says.’ It just kind of holds that space that this is about caring for others, and it just supersedes everything else, and that is a beautiful thing.”
For more information, call the church at (970) 565-7865.
To volunteer next year, watch for an announcement on the church’s Facebook page in October.
