GAINESVILLE – One of Hall County’s longest-running Thanksgiving celebrations will take place this week as scheduled, but thanks (or rather, “no thanks”) to COVID-19, it will happen under very different circumstances than in previous years.
The Good News at Noon shelter on Davis Street in Gainesville will begin serving, as usual, a traditional Thanksgiving Day meal at noon on Thursday, but the most noted difference won’t be in those who attend the feast, but in those who serve.
Denise Johnson, Community Coordinator for Good News, said, “Our Thanksgiving will look different this year in terms of the number of volunteers; we will be limiting the volunteers to about fifteen.”
Johnson said additional rooms at the ministry are being set up to allow for table spacing that meets recommended social-distancing guidelines, but added, “We are not limiting the number of our guests.” Eating in shifts will happen as required until the last client is fed.
Nearly thirty years ago ministry founders Gene and Margie Beckstein put out a call for volunteers to come to the shelter and help them serve a special Thanksgiving feast to the community’s growing homeless population. The answer to that plea was overwhelming.
In ensuing years volunteers began to outnumber clients by more than two-to-one; having 200-plus people arrive at the shelter on Thanksgiving morning for the purpose of serving was not uncommon.
But “Mr. B”, as he became known, always found a way to keep everyone busy, to let every volunteer know that what they were doing was valuable. Mr. B knew that the need people feel deep within them to serve others could be as powerful as the hunger pangs the homeless experience for a good meal.
And he especially didn’t want families to miss the opportunity to serve, as parents would bring their young children to the event and expose them to the significance of helping those less fortunate.
Oftentimes Mr. B would “assign” those families tasks outside the dining room, such as wrapping Christmas gifts, packing food boxes for distribution in the surrounding neighborhoods, or helping sort through the mountain of clothes and personal-care items donated to the ministry.
But 2020 and the coronavirus have changed things dramatically. For the past eight months participation by groups and individuals that have provided the cooked food and the service for twice-daily meals has plummeted.
“Which is a huge need for us this year because many of our servers have had to step back because of COVID,” Johnson explained. “The two or three staff people that we have, have been filling in…so meals and serving are very big (needs) right now.”
Johnson said, “The ministry doesn’t change because of COVID in terms of feeding people in need, clothing people in need, or providing showers for people in need; all that has remained the same.”
“But I do need to say that God has done an amazing work,” Johnson said. “Although we’ve lost plenty of volunteers we have gained a younger group of volunteers, and that is also an answer to prayer…because we want to have all ages serving here.”
Only God knows how many of the younger volunteers now stepping forward to help got their first taste of ministry years ago when their parents brought them to Thanksgiving Dinner at Good News at Noon.
“So God has worked through COVID despite some of the changes we have had to make,” Johnson said with enthusiasm.
For information on the ministry of Good News at Noon contact Denise or Ken at (770) 503-1366, or visit the ministry’s website by clicking here.
