St. John Lutheran Church in Seward will continue to seat people around the table to feast on its annual Thanksgiving dinner at noon on Thanksgiving day. The dinner will be open to the public.
Mindy Miller, a member of St. John Lutheran Church, has been helping with the dinner for 13 years. She said the meal usually brings in around 200 people, however, organizers don’t track attendance or numbers as they like to keep it casual.
“We do a family-style dinner,” Miller said. “We all sit down, we pray together and then we all go through the serving lines. It’s not really a come-and-go thing. Everyone is here and we all eat together.”
Miller said there won’t be any new additions to the dinner this year.
“We really try to keep it the same so we and others know exactly what to expect,” she said.
The only year things really changed was in 2020, when the church was not able to hold the dinner due to Covid. Miller said things were back to normal in 2021.
“We still had a really good turnout that year,” she said. “It was more like 150 rather than 200, but still a really good turnout.”
Miller mentioned that the event is mainly volunteer and is made possible through donations and the Human Care Board at St. John.
“We buy a few groceries,” she said. “We make the stuffing and the green beans. Everything else is donated by the church and congregation members.”
People can donate to the event, as Miller said they have a free will offering and items can be dropped off at the church.
Miller also wanted to make it clear that anyone can come for the dinner and it’s not based on needs.
“We have some people that bring their whole family,” she said. We have some single people, college students and just a little bit of everything.”
Since the church has been doing the dinner for quite some time, Miller said they see the importance of the event.
“We have been very blessed at St. John and this is just our way of giving back what God has done for us,” she said. “We don’t ask people to sign in or prove that they need it or anything like that. It’s just our offering to the community and just thanking God for what he’s done for us as a church and congregation and being able to spread that out.”
With the past years of hard work during the event, Miller wanted to thank the volunteers.
“Our volunteers are amazing,” she said. “A lot of people are having volunteer shortages, and we need at least 100 people to make this work, and we are able to get that every year. We really appreciate the work they do.”
Anyone interested in volunteering for the St. John Thanksgiving dinner can contact the church’s office at (402) 643-2983.
