Feasts for the community planned for Thanksgiving in Muncie

MUNCIE, Ind. − The Second Annual Thanksgiving Feast with Concrete Rose and Charmed Cupcake is being put together at the Soup Kitchen of Muncie on Thursday, Nov. 24, while the Muncie Mission is plotting another major take out meal, expected to serve about 900 people, for the holiday.

Also, Feed My Sheep, which had been creating a large Thanksgiving meal for community for decades, will be distributing $25 grocery gift cards and Mrs. Wick's Pies at the Muncie Central High School parking lot on Saturday as organizers lay plans to return to communal dining in 2023.

Fear of spreading COVID shut down eating together at community feasts but the traditional gathering is slowing making a comeback. The Second Annual Thanksgiving Feast, orchestrated by Concrete Rose, a nonprofit empowerment and leadership program, and the downtown bakery Charmed Cupcake Co., will include dining-in this year at the Soup Kitchen of Muncie, 920 E. Charles St.

Loretta Parsons, executive director of the soup kitchen, said her organization decided to let organizers use their kitchen and give the soup kitchen staff the chance to spend the day at home with their families.

Parsons said the soup kitchen has only been allowing inside dining since last month after relying on take-out meals. The soup kitchen was serving 164 meals a day in October, which is about 20 more than meals than it was serving before the pandemic started.

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The Community Thanksgiving feast will be from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.

In addition to dining in, there will be hot meals available for carry out and delivery. There will also be carry-out groceries available at the event and Wick's Pies will also be served.

A post on the Charmed Cupcake Facebook page Wednesday said: "Every need has been met for the upcoming feast. If you would still like to contribute, Please bring canned goods and other non-perishable items to Charmed or other collection sites. We will be putting all of the grocery bags together starting next Monday. Any additional monetary donations will be used toward groceries, hats and gloves."

The post went on the ask people to spread the word to anyone who is in need of a hot meal and groceries this Thanksgiving and said meal delivery requests could still be made by the following link: https://www.eventcreate.com/e/givethanks22

Also cooking up a big meal on Thanksgiving is the Muncie Mission.

It's all take out again this year, said Bob Scott, vice president of development for the mission, as it has been since the pandemic.

At this point, the dining area at the mission is used to stage to distribution effort for about 900 full-course traditional Thanksgiving meals. Thursday morning staff and volunteers will deliver meals on 25 routes throughout area before opening up the mission up for the general public to drive by for take out Thanksgiving meals.

The take-out meals will be available from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. at the Mission, 1725 S. Liberty St. Last year the mission served more than 800 meals at Thanksgiving, Scott said.

The operation is well prepared with volunteers this year as for many helping feed the community through the mission has become a tradition at Thanksgiving.

"They make this a part of their holiday," Scott said.

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Staff and volunteers will then be turning their attention to a Christmas holiday meal Muncie Mission serves on the Sunday before Christmas, which will be Dec. 18 this year. That is another take out affair with about 600 to 700 meals being distributed made available to people throughout the community.

Scott said it takes about three weeks to pull the planning, food and people together to assemble one of the community meals.

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Feed My Sheep traditionally fed area residents at the Muncie Central High School cafeteria. It is also planning to distribute groceries and Concannon bakery gift baskets on Wednesday night.

Lake said FMS is planning to return to dining together as a community next year.

Those seeking assistance can contact the group at fmsmuncie.org. The organization is also in need of contributions, which can be sent to P.O. Box 78, Yorktown, Ind. 47396.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Feasts for the community planned for Thanksgiving in Muncie