Rockdale’s annual free Thanksgiving meal, which was not held in 2017, will return this November.
A planning meeting is set for 6:20 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 12, at New Hope Baptist Church, 327 East Third, according to Pearlie Mack, spokesperson for the project.
“The entire community is invited to attend and help plan the meal,” Mack said. “We were unable to have it in 2017 and a lot of people were disappointed.”
The annual event, always held on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, began in 1990 at New Hope.
Its goal was that no one in Rockdale had to miss having a Thanksgiving meal. Volunteers provided a meal to eat-in or by delivery. Most of the meals were delivered.
By 2010 the effort was serving over 1,000 persons and had outgrown the New Hope facilities. It was moved to the New Salem HD Clubhouse at Fair Park.
In 2013 it was relocated again to First Baptist Church’s Family Life Center. The luncheon was held there through 2016, when it still served 575 persons.
“This is not an effort just for New Hope,” Mack said. “We have had many different local churches helping with the meal in the past and we hope representatives from those churches will come to this meeting of Sept. 12,” she said.
“We need sponsors to help with buying food for the meal, preparers to make the food, people to deliver the meal to shut-ins and more,” she said.
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