The call is out for people interested in serving a Christmas Dinner at Brookside Community Church in Indianapolis.  The Thanksgiving dinner was great and now our friends are planning for Christmas.

Here's a note from our friend Erin:

Hello, friends of Brookside!  Here we are on the heels of a very successful Thanksgiving dinner at Brookside and heading full speed into Christmas dinner!  You are receiving this email because you expressed interest in assisting with this meal and we would LOVE to have you! 

Christmas dinner this year will be on Sunday, December 20th.  It will be served immediately following the morning service (around 11:30am, depending on how the Spirit moves!) and is served in the church gym. 

This year we will be serving: 

Ham
Corn
Mashed potatoes
Gravy
Stuffing
Rolls
Pie and/or cake
Lemonade

I'll make every attempt to break the serving opportunities down into several hour time blocks so that you are able to come for as little or as long as you like.  The schedule looks basically like this:                                  

7:30 am – 11:00 am       Warm turkeys and prepare the remainder of the meal and beverages

10:00 am – 11:00 am     Set up serving and dining tables and chairs in the gymnasium

11:00 am – Noon           Set out food and beverages on serving tables

Noon – 2:00 pm             Serve Brookside folks in two shifts

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm         Crew 1 – clean kitchen

                                    Crew 2 – return tables and chairs to dining hall

                                    Crew 3 – Sweep and mop gym floor and empty trash

If you are still willing to serve at this meal, please respond to me when you are able with number of individuals coming with you as well as top three choices for serving times. 

Thank you so much for your giving spirits and Happy Thanksgiving!!

In His service,

Erin Szalkie

If you are interested, leave a comment below and I'll connect you with Erin.  

[image by don2g]

Happy Thanksgiving!  To everyone that came out to volunteer at Brookside last Sunday, it was awesome!

Our friend Erin Szalkie sent out the following note:

Thank you, thank you thank you!  Thanks to your efforts and giving hearts, the Brookside Thanksgiving Dinner was a huge success- we were able to serve close to 300 people this year!  We so appreciate your willingness to share your time and talents with us as we work to show God's love to our neighbors in the Brookside community.  We pray that you felt blessed as well by the experience and that you will consider working with us again next year.

300!   That's amazing.   Everything went so smooth and I think the people at Brookside had a great time.  Thanks Erin and Jim for all you do!

[image by J. McPherson]

I wanted to pass this along to anyone around the Indianapolis area that might have an interest in helping to serve a Thanksgiving Dinner at Brookside Community Church in Indianapolis.   My family helped serve last year and we're planning to help again this year.   We bring our 6 and 3 year old boys and they have a great time helping too.  It really is a blessing to serve other people.

Here's the info from our friend Erin:

Hello, friends of Brookside!
 
This email is going out to everyone that expressed interest last year in helping with the Brookside Community Church Thanksgiving dinner, those who have expressed interest so far this year, and those of you who are already serving on Sunday mornings.
 
Jim (my husband) and I will once again be coordinating the Thanksgiving dinner at church. This year we will be serving dinner on Sunday, November 22nd.  We will once again do what we did last year, which is to serve a light breakfast before church and then serve dinner immediately following the service.
 
We plan to serve the following:
 
Turkey
Ham
Stuffing
Green Beans
Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Rolls
Pie
Milk/Coffee/Fruit Punch
 
One thing we'd like to do differently this year is to get individuals to volunteer to cook and slice a turkey at home the day before (November 21st) and then we'll reheat at church that morning.
 
We are eagerly looking for those who are willing to help with cooking turkeys, breakfast that morning, setup, cooking, serving, clean up, and any other fun thing we can think of! :)  And, of course, I have to be shameless and also say that we're looking for any financial/food donations to help us cover the cost of this meal, as it lies outside our church budget.
 
For those of you who have served at Brookside in the past, you know full well that you leave feeling more blessed than those you are serving.  I hope you'll prayerfully consider partnering with us this year in whatever way you see fit as we minister to the hearts, minds and STOMACHS of the Brookside community!
 
If you are interested in this opportunity, you can reach us at 317.253.8966.  We look forward to serving with you!
 
Erin Szalkie

If you're interested in serving, you could also comment below and be sure to fill out email address field (it won't be posted on the site) and I'll help coordinate too.

[image by hendricksfamily]

If you're in the Indy area and you've ever thought about serving at Brookside, I've got a perfect opportunity for you.   Join us this Sunday Nov 23rd to help prepare and serve a Thanksgiving dinner.    It truely is a great experience and good for kids of all ages.   We'll be there with Camden and Caleb (5 and 2 years old).    They love to help out and help serve. 

Here are some details: 

Dinner is being served immediately following the morning service.  We expect to start serving around 11:45.  Obviously, dinner for such a large group is going to take a lot of preparation.  We will be arriving at Brookside around 8am.  We WELCOME any of you who are willing to come down at that time to help us begin setting up the gymnasium for the meal.  If you can't make it at 8am, just come when you can.

For lunch we'll be serving turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberries, and either cake or pie (we're still working out that detail).  We are going to need assistance in the following areas:

1. Setting up

2. Preparing food

3. Serving food

4. Clearing tables

5. Cleanup

6. Preparing drinks

7. Cutting/serving desserts

We would like to prepare and serve many of these dishes from either crock pots or roasting pans.  If you have either of these that you're willing to lend for the afternoon, we'd really appreciate it.  It will be helpful to keep things warm while they're on the serving line. 

For those of you who have never been to Brookside before, the church is located at 1035 N. Olney St.  There is a parking lot directly across from the church as well as street parking.  If you have any questions or concerns that morning, you can reach me at 513-7070.

Leave me a comment below if you think you want to come, so we can help in planning volunteers and tasks.    It truely is a blessing to serve at Brookside and I really encourage you to come.   It will be a great time.