Here at the Mission of Our Lady of the Angels, we celebrated another record-breaking Thanksgiving this year! On the Saturday before Thanksgiving we hosted our annual Thanksgiving Prayer Brunch for about 350 neighbors. This event includes gathering in the Church for beautiful music provided by our friends from Morton Apostolic Christian Church in Peoria and a simple prayer service preached by Bishop Bob. This year we also invited volunteers and young adults from St. John’s in IN (who came on an overnight service retreat) to help us to sign up for Eucharistic Adoration hours so that Our Lord was being adored in the Church all throughout the morning set-up, the prayer service with our neighbors, and throughout the afternoon food distribution. Our neighbors then headed down into the church basement to enjoy a delicious brunch of pulled pork, spinach and egg white puff pastry, Puerto Rican rice, fruit, and cookies. It was a joy to see the Church and church basement so filled with neighbors and volunteers enjoying one another’s company and the delicious food! As soon as the meal ended, our guests all received a turkey and a set of everything they needed to prepare a beautiful Thanksgiving meal at home for their families. At the same time, we lined Thanksgiving “stations” all up and down Iowa Street and opened up the street to welcome anyone in need of food for Thanksgiving. This year’s give away included a turkey, potatoes, apples, a box of assorted Thanksgiving side dishes, a delicious apple pie, and an “Evangelization Bag”. This year we provided turkeys and Thanksgiving meals to over 950 families at this event alone – a new record!
But that wasn’t all… a few days later, at the Tuesday Pantry, we gave out an additional 939 turkeys and sets of Thanksgiving dinner food between our in-person pantry guests and those elderly and homebound neighbors who receive grocery delivery. Altogether we provided Thanksgiving dinners for 1,889 families this year! What a testament to God’s providence and the generosity of so many benefactors and volunteers! We are so grateful to all who helped to make these beautiful days possible.
