St. Raymond Catholic Church Invites Those in Need to Thanksgiving Community Outreach Dinner

Volunteers at St. Raymond Catholic Church in Dublin along with other faith communities in the area will be giving more than just thanks this holiday season. For the second year in a row, church and other volunteers will be spending their time giving of themselves by serving a special holiday meal for those in need. 

Seniors, singles, families and military in need are welcomed to the event, which serves guests a traditional holiday meal. The meals are made possible by volunteers from the churches, donations of time and food from local community groups and local businesses, according to Matt Troiano.

Matt Troiano said, via email:

"The idea for the dinner started with Deacon John Archer and myself, we noticed the number of seniors who attend the monthly Knights of Columbus Fish Fries at St. Raymond Catholic Church here in Dublin, and recognizing that we have a aging population in some areas of Dublin, we talked for two years about the possibility of having a dinner.

Last year we started having meetings in May, and received a large number of volunteers from our parish, we invited other churches in the area and Ken Mano from the Church of Latter Day Saints, participated and recruited a lot of volunteers from his church.

We decided early on that this would be a sit down meal and those taking part would be served, we rented plates, glasses and flatware and had linen table clothes, all made possible through generous cash donations from businesses, individuals and service organizations. 

Children at St. Raymond School made place mats for the tables. We received several pallets of food from Ocean Spray and Safeway, turkeys from Lucky's, hams from Wyotech in Fremont and bread from Semifreddis.

Volunteers cooked turkeys, and green bean casseroles. Girl scouts baked about 90 dozen cookies at Vito's, the cookie dough was donated by a family at St. Raymond. Ann Perez our Pie Lady, recruited several people to help bake pies. Clothing was donated by two families from St. Raymond and there was entertainment.

A childrens' activity room was set up with arts and crafts, Best Buy loaned us a flat screen television so children of the volunteers could watch movies."

For more details about joining the community Thanksgiving dinner, email trivalleyoutreach@gmail.com.