On Thanksgiving Day, Marius Carr rode his bike 40 minutes through melting snow to pick up a hot meal from the St. Francis of Assisi Kitchen at 500 Penn Ave. in Scranton.
He ate with around 100 others at the charity’s noon Thanksgiving meal before packing up a second meal for his roommate and riding back to the Moosic Motor Inn, where the two share a room. It’s his responsibility to get the meals, the 60-year-old said, because he has a bike.
“It’s hard, especially when all you do is temp work,” he said.
That meal wouldn’t be possible without the nearly two dozen volunteers at the kitchen, operated by Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Scranton. Many of those volunteers, such as Judy Haudenschield, have been helping out at the kitchen for several years.
For Mrs. Haudenschield and her family, volunteering on Thanksgiving is a family tradition.
“I feel like our family has been very (fortunate), so we want to give back,” she said.
Mrs. Haudenschield, along with her husband, Jeff, and two sons, David, 17, and Chris, 15, has been volunteering on Thanksgiving for more than 11 years. Being at the kitchen instead of at home isn’t a burden on the family, David said.
“There’s a lot of time for family afterward,” he said.
Mr. Carr said he planned to be at the Keystone Mission for the evening meal. By about 3:30 p.m., some 15 volunteers had trickled into the mission at 8 W. Olive St., to prepare the meal, but volunteer Kathy Regan said she expected a full contingent of nearly 50 volunteers to be on hand by the time the meal got underway at 6 p.m. Since there is no kitchen at the facility, Keystone Mission’s volunteers bring pre-made food with them. The mission counts on those volunteers to serve the nearly 70 people expected for the evening meal, Ms. Regan said.
Many Keystone Mission volunteers are first-timers.
“That’s the thing to do, volunteer on Thanksgiving,” Ms. Regan said.
David Anon was one of the new volunteers. He said he decided to work at the mission this year as a way to be productive.
“It’s better than sitting at home being fat,” he said as he carved into one of the mission’s many turkeys.
Not all the volunteers were first-timers. Tommy Hill has been coming to the mission since late 2006, first as a patron, and now as a volunteer.
“Let’s just say I made some pretty poor choices,” he said. “I lost everything.”
Mr. Hill said he once went several days without a meal before someone told him about the mission. He started helping out almost immediately afterward and keeps coming back because he feels a connection to the people who seek help from the shelter, he said.
“This is where my family is now,” he explained.
Contact the writer:
lranker@timesshamrock.com