 My name is Bruce Cree. We've been doing this for over 30 years in conjunction with Catholic Church, St. Mark's down the road. And today we set 900 meals per there. And we have a sit down meal here at the facility. And probably 40-50 dollars have helped to join us. Let me turn this over to somebody else on the top. And I've been a member of the North Avenue Church since 1993 and been involved in this helping out and serving and delivering meals for about 22 years now. And I find that it's a great service to offer to people. And for people that can't get out, it's a special treat to be able to deliver meals to them and wish them a happy Thanksgiving. And sometimes we might be the only people that they see within this day. So I think it's really important to give meals out and welcome people and say happy Thanksgiving. And the joy of the Lord is in all of this and helping hands make light work for people. So it's a pleasure and an honor to be serving God and caring for each other. And I'm going to serve it to my sister Mary. Hi, my name is Mary O'Donnell. I am Linda's sister and a friend of Bill. And I'm not a member here. I only attend North Avenue Alliance Church when I'm visiting my sister. And when she said that, hey, we make, the church makes meals to give to the people that are in, that can't get out and would like Thanksgiving meal, plus they also serve. So she told me she delivers and would I like to be a part of it. And I've been doing it for quite a few years. North Avenue Alliance and St. Mark's Church do it together. And if anybody needs a meal, get a hold of somebody at North Avenue Alliance Church or St. Mark's Church gets signed up. And there's so many volunteers. Everything gets covered. The meals get delivered and the people we receive in the meals are so thankful. And I'm thankful. God is good and we share His love. Thank you. Hi, my name is Mark Kruger. I've been a member of the congregation here for many, many years. And I love to come out here and work this Thanksgiving meal with my wife and I. You know, we come out here and help serve and do whatever needs to be done. And we just really, very much enjoy that. Well, I don't know if you know this, but I'm related to a very historical figure, Governor William Bradford. Believe it or not, he was actually my ancestor. Um, and that's why Thanksgiving is kind of important to me, not just to me, but also my entire family. And that's pretty much what I have to say. Oh, um, and, and, let me start. Sorry, technical difficulties. Um, I don't know if you know this, but I'm also a student at UVM. And we're on a, so you've, this is, yeah, I'm on Thanksgiving break right now. Actually, I go back to school on Monday. So UVM has made a big difference not only in my family's life, but in mine as well. My name is Paula. This is the first time we've come to this event. And thanks to Lorraine and her husband, they're the ones who came and got me and brought me here and going to be bringing me home. And I'm Lorraine. So I have, I've enjoyed being here, meeting people. I've learned so much just from talking to people and having them share their stories with me, get to be with people who, you know, we get to share the day together. And I enjoy that, enjoy being with people. And it's just fun to learn, learn from them to hear about their lives and time to celebrate with one another. Hello everyone. I am, my name is Eva and I live here in Burlington. I've been here for 24 years. And I usually come to this place when I found out there was one. For a number of years I did home with my turkey and stuff. And I used to go downtown to the other one. They had turkey, but I really enjoy the meal here, able to sit here and enjoy the people here. And I get to meet new people. I may see them next year and I've seen people that I haven't seen in a long time, sometimes. So next year if you're not, if you're available, you can come to the church here on North Avenue. Today they had it from 11 till 2, I believe. And I still kind of finished up my dinner a little bit here. And then I'm going to go home and maybe watch TV or do something special because I live by myself. And I didn't want to be by myself today so I got out of the house. So I wish you all the happy Thanksgiving and I tell you I want to say something else. I want to wish you a happy turkey day. I want to wish you a happy turkey day. I want to wish you a happy turkey day from the bottom of my heart. Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas because I won't see you in the Christmas time. Goodbye. So we're happy to be here today. We had nowhere to go really so we heard about North Avenue Alliance Church hosting this really nice gathering here. We ate well and we got even the takeouts. People were so nice to us, so willing to help us and wait on us. Very nice. So we appreciate it very, very much. I am Lina Lu. I'm an artist and so when I got here and realized there were no signs, I made a couple signs so people would come in to this lovely dinner where all these people are welcoming and have great food and my friend Angela got me into this because my family lives in Minnesota and the other friends were going elsewhere and it's just been a super, super welcoming event. So how do you say it? What's the name? What's your church's name? The church. This church is North Avenue Alliance. North Avenue Alliance Church sponsored this. We could even have fed more people than we have but everybody here has been wonderful to each other and wonderful to talk to and the food is fantastic. So anyway, I'm glad they're talking about this so other people can remember it for next year. And happy Thanksgiving. Find out what you're grateful for. So I'm grateful for friends and family and when I can't be with my family 300 miles south of here, I like to volunteer and help out and that makes me feel happy and grateful. So yes, the venue for the sit-down dinner was here at North Avenue Alliance Church and I do it in conjunction with St. Mark's Church up the street and they will deliver meals directly to your home. There's volunteers that drive around the meals. I just heard that they did 900 meals today driving them directly to people's homes. And this was nice because this was the sit-down area and we got to visit with guests that were on their own for various reasons. They became a widower or a widower or they're just in the area and have no family. I really hope that these Thanksgiving opportunities get much more, have much more awareness so other people in the coming years will hear about it and come. I'm sure there's a lot of people that haven't heard but I guess each year it gets a little bigger. So I'm grateful for that as well and happy to be here. Thanks so much. I'm Brenda Dal Viana and I grew up in Burlington so I know most of the people that grew up here and my friends and I'm at the North Avenue Alliance Church and they have given us a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner and I'm really grateful to them because I always had a big family dinner with my family and now it is really nice to come and gather with a bunch of people and have a nice social dinner when all my family has moved away and so I just recommend that you take advantage of this opportunity because these people are wonderful and I got to have real, real mashed potatoes which I love, lots of gravy for the first time in a long time so it's been nice talking to you. Thank you. We're at St. Mark's and we did the takeout deliveries today we had over 900 and then the volunteers stayed and eight also because a lot of them didn't have any place to go and we appreciate their help. We got a total of 89 turkeys and about 300 pounds of potatoes and everybody that, all the drivers that came were delightful and very helpful and everything was pretty much donated all the food was donated which is great, it's a great community and the drivers came from all over we did deliveries to Heinsberg we did some to Underhill we did some to South Burlington San Richmond, so it was a great time and Mary, Sarah was one of the ones that helped volunteers she'd been here all week helping us we started cooking turkeys on Sunday and we cooked the last one today so here's Sarah. Hi, well I have a really delightful physical therapist and I said I don't know how to keep moving this week, I have something for you to volunteer and she gave me Tina's number and I've been here all week and it's such a wonderful thing I've received Thanksgiving dinners in 21 and 22 and I think this is a way of giving back when people are, I live at Heineberg senior residence and when people are alone and live alone the holidays can be hard and I figure as long as I'm healthy and able to help that it's just as big a blessing to give as to receive we are also going to be a takeout dinner for Christmas dinner we're having ham with the potatoes and vegetable and then we're offering macaroni and cheese as a vegetarian option so if anybody won't like a dinner on Christmas day reach out to St. Mark's church and we'll be happy to drop one off or if anybody wants to help volunteer cooking or delivering the meal that would really be appreciated thank you so we're members of the Battery Park community here in Burlington and we're representing the on-housed community we're representing support for the on-housed community and all are invited to this free Thanksgiving feast that's held here at the first United Methodist Church the church with red doors and we're appreciative of their support we have a lot of supporters including the VFW including the Richard Kemp Center including just the individuals here that put their effort together we have Maddie Maddie was in the kitchen and put in on a lot of effort we have a lot of support from friends and family and we're just here just to put on an event in support of the on-housed and those who are hungry this season and we had a good time the music is great we had 120 miles that we fed here and everyone enjoyed we know that there are scarce resources around so we wanted to make sure that we were one of the individuals or the groups here that support the greater community at a time like this so just shouting out from the Battery Park community space and then um no it's just been fun donating to the community and look forward to us next year doing something very similar if not the same yeah next year the title is the free Thanksgiving feast so every year we want to make sure it's as big as possible donations make this happen this is all sponsored and support so anyone who wants to know more about it look out for the Battery Park community page on Facebook and all the social media platforms my name is Todd and I like to say first of all thank everybody for what happened here today it's amazing I was really flabbergasted a little nervous because we were going to run out of food I'm looking at this as this is not just a certain people event this will be an event that will happen year after year and eventually the whole community will come together and say hey it's Thanksgiving we got to go to the church and get off a meal and bring everybody in the whole entire whoever wants to come and eat for one day on Thanksgiving and enjoy themselves and enjoy company and it'd be a zen in their own selves that's a beautiful Wellington we we really like I never know I believe like this is happening and I'm like this is really happening for people who don't have nothing no homes and be outside and cold and trying to like make it up in life and then be like oh we have support somewhere and then we hear and then I just walk today I'm like I never know it's happening and it did but it is I got some food for me for Thanksgiving and then only things I can say God bless and God bless America thank you hi my name is E. Shaden and I'm staying here at the Methodist Church in Wellington Thanksgiving dinner and it was very nice we served about 100 to 120 people and it was very nice and we're planning on doing it again next year and it was a really fun event we served dinner and for the homeless and it was really fun