By Laura Acuff, Student Reporter
In light of the impending Thanksgiving holiday, businesses and organizations within and outside Abilene are welcoming student volunteers for holiday-oriented charities.
“The one thing that we do, and we ask the students come prepared to do, is we try to make this a special day for those who are less fortunate,” said Jim DeFoor, director of veterans services for Taylor County, which is hosting a Thanksgiving meal Thursday.
The annual event has fed 1,000 people each year for the last two years, and students are invited to volunteer – no signups or preparation necessary – between 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Thursday, ready to help serve food and assist in cleanup, DeFoor said.
“Just show up and tell us ‘hey, I am here to volunteer,’ and we will put [you] to work,” DeFoor said.
Abilene’s Salvation Army chapter’s Thanksgiving meal provides another opportunity for students seeking to volunteer. Anticipating around 300 guests, Salvation Army community development director Cecilia Barahona said volunteers should call her for a specific assignment and expect to spend time serving individuals.
“It just kind of makes them feel special, rather than making them go through a buffet line, just kind of serving them wherever they are,” Barahona said.
DeFoor and Barahona said their events welcome college students both as volunteers and as guests.
“It’s not just for the homeless,” Barahona said. “People who don’t have anyone in town will come have dinner – just to have companionship.”
Katie Lindsey, junior business management major from Missouri City, plans to help with Love & Care Ministries’ Mission Thanksgiving today by collecting, sorting and donating food and household items and with International Rescue Committee tomorrow by cooking a meal for refugees new to the United States. Lindsey has mixed feelings about surges of generosity during the holiday season.
“I think people are more benevolent during Thanksgiving than they are generally, and that probably has something to do with the fact that we’re being reminded of just how much we actually do have,” Lindsey said. “The whole holiday revolves around giving things and appreciating, but it also revolves around excess in everything. I think it’s really good that people are more generous at Thanksgiving, but it also makes me a little bit frustrated that it is such an isolated thing. I hope Thanksgiving can be used as a catalyst to kind of launch future efforts of generosity.”
Beyond Abilene, this weekend’s campaign to Oklahoma City, also resonates of the holiday season, with students scheduled to package and distribute Thanksgiving meals to needy families.
“I have a lot of time this weekend that I’m not doing anything,” said freshman interdisciplinary major Allison Maust from Wakarusa, Ind., who plans to attend the campaign. “I feel like God is asking me to use that time for something bigger than myself.”
