A THANKSGIVING PRAYER
Coraopolis church feeds more than 500 on Thanksgiving
By the numbers, it took 600 pounds of turkey, 185 pounds of potatoes, 112.5 pounds of yams, 100 pounds of green beans, 50 pounds of corn, 12.5 pounds of fresh cranberries, 11 gallons of gravy, 48 onions, 22 hours and a platoon of volunteers at Coraopolis United Methodist Church for Jeanne Cosgrove to fill 525 bellies on Thanksgiving.
But the spirit of service, giving and gratitude involved could not possibly be quantified.
For the seventh consecutive year, Mrs. Cosgrove has assembled this holiday get-together and said of it, “This is what I’ll do [for Thanksgiving] for the rest of my life.”
“Nine years ago, my sister and my mother passed away. Thanksgiving that year, everyone else was away. And so it was my husband, my two kids and me, and I cooked all day. I called them to the table, and in 10 minutes, they were done — and I thought, well, this is stupid,” she said with a laugh Thursday.
“My kids said it was the most boring holiday we’d ever had, and I agreed. I said, ‘We’re not doing that again.’ I asked, ‘What do you think about volunteering somewhere?’ and we all agreed that was a good idea.”
They volunteered first at a church in the South Hills, delivering meals.
“We loved it,” Mrs. Cosgrove said. “On the way home, I said we should start one of these at our church, and that’s how it started.”
So they did, and it’s grown every year since.
This year, they combined forces with congregants from the Whosoever Wills church in Coraopolis to make, serve and distribute 525 meals that went to elderly, needy or simply lonely folks in Coraopolis — as well as first responders working on the holiday, including Coraopolis, Moon, Crescent and Robert Morris University police; Valley Ambulance; the Air Force Reserve 911th Airlift Wing and the Pennsylvania Air National Guard 171st Air Refueling Wing; and the National Weather Service station in Moon.
Chris Strager quarterbacks meal prep in the church’s kitchen, where everything is made from scratch. A native of McKeesport, the National Weather Service meteorologist was transferred from Moon to Kansas City, Mo., five years ago but returns annually with his family for the holiday and this meal. Preparations started at noon Wednesday and lasted eight hours, and then started up again at 6 a.m. Thursday for a 14-hour day.
“I’d never cooked for more than 10 people in my life,” he said, prior to getting involved.
He’s retiring in May, and his family will move back to Moon. He hopes to take over the church’s community dinner on the first Wednesday of each month.
“The need is here beyond Thanksgiving Day,” Mr. Strager said.
And perhaps with some providence, they’ll help to meet that need, as happened the first year they did this dinner in what Mrs. Cosgrove dubbed “The Miracle of the Mashed Potatoes.”
She explains: “A couple of weeks prior to the dinner, I was talking to an old friend and said my biggest fear was that someone is going to come in for a meal and we will have run out of food, and then what will we do? And she said, ‘Loaves and fishes, baby — God will provide,’ so that became my mantra.”
The day arrived and halfway through serving, they ran out of mashed potatoes. Although there was plenty of other food, Mrs. Cosgrove was nearly distraught over the development.
Just a few moments later, by sheer coincidence, a donation from another church arrived: a tray of mashed potatoes.
“I call that the Miracle of the Mashed Potatoes,” she said. “Ever since then, I don’t worry about anything, because it’s all going to work out.”
For more information about meal service at Coraopolis United Methodist Church, visit www.coraopolisumc.org/meal-ministry/.