Hundreds of Holiday Meals Served in Vernon

It takes a lot of planning and preparation to serve food to more than one thousand people but the Vernon community came together and did just that on this Thanksgiving day.

This line inside the Wilbarger Auditorium was not for folks waiting to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal.

It was for folks waiting to serve it up to the public.

From hundreds of pounds of dressing, turkey, ham and all the holiday trimmings, volunteers grabbed plates and filled them in an organized fashion.

"There's a lot of veterans here that have served the country and are excited to come home and continue to serve and help out in any way that we can. It's just the way the compassionate spirit rises at this time of the year, I guess," says Cody McMullen, who volunteered to deliver meals.

And that compassion carries over to the younger generation.

Carl Dann has volunteered here for 14 years.

"Me my kids. I've got three kids. They've grown up coming through the line since before they could carry a box. We've been coming that long," Dann says.

Sheri Cannon-Jorzcak has also brought her children here for several years.

She and other volunteers are driven by the holiday spirit of giving to deliver meals to those who aren't able to get out and about.

In fact, the Jorczak family came from Houston to make deliveries.

"We help there when we're there when we're there in other ways but when we're here it's important to help in the community that I was raised in. So, there's needs everywhere so we can help everywhere. Not just one place," says Jorczak.

Volunteers served up and delivered up more than 500 meals to Vernon home. Then, once that was done, they served up several hundred more meals to folks who came to the Wilbarger Auditorium.

When Pat and Glenna Bryant started this feast they served 300 meals.

Twenty-six years later it's blossomed to more than 1,000.

"We felt very blessed by God for all the good things He had done for us over the years and we had had an exceptionally good year in business so we felt we needed to share," explains Pat Bryant.

Their sharing has spread to hundreds in the Vernon community who have something to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving day.

Thanks to the Bryant's and dozens of volunteers 1,017 Thanksgiving meals were served today in Vernon And now, the Bryants have a few weeks to rest before they do it all again for Christmas.