Holiday Meals

“We live in a culture with so many empty cliches about the holiday season. But surely all of you embody the best of what this season is supposed to mean.” Bob Lamm, Volunteer*

For the 2011 holiday season, more than 2500 Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were prepared, served and delivered.  On the right hand side there are photos from these great events. We could have not done this without the help and support of our many volunteers and local merchants.

To inquire about volunteering for 2012, please email holidaymeals@goddard.org.

Holiday Meals Flyer
Holiday Dinners Brochure 2011

About the Holiday Meals program:

Every year on both Thanksgiving and Christmas we serve and deliver 1300 warm holiday meals to anyone from the community who wants to participate, many of them homeless.

The dinners are festive, sit-down occasions with volunteer servers waiting on the guests. They are held at our 593 Columbus Avenue headquarters and are the joint efforts of hundreds of community volunteers, both individuals and organizations. A tradition that goes back many years, the dinners were held at Advent Lutheran Church until they outgrew the space. Many people spend part of their holiday helping to prepare and serve the meal. Others drop off a cooked turkey or a dessert, or donate money. Many community merchants contribute generously.

*This is my 11th year of volunteering at Goddard Riverside on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or usually both. I just want to  say, as I’ve said to some of you privately for years, that I am deeply impressed and moved by the outstanding work that you do in ensuring that these meals are so wonderful. These meals mean a lot to volunteers like myself, but of course that is trivial in comparison to what they mean to the guests. It’s such a wonderful gift at a sensitive time of year to so many people whom I’m sure are going through some hard times.

I don’t know any of you well and there are undoubtedly many of you that I don’t know at all. For whatever the words of a relative stranger are worth, please know that you have my great respect and gratitude for your leadership, commitment, dedication, kindness, and generosity. We live in a culture with so many empty cliches about the holiday season. But surely all of you embody the best of what this season is supposed to mean.

I hope you are all proud. You surely deserve to be.

Bob Lamm, Volunteer