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Cherry Street Mission serves hundreds during annual Thanksgiving day feast

The Real Seafood Company served up a traditional Thanksgiving dinner while Chick-fil-A employees volunteered to serve the food.

TOLEDO, Ohio — Thanksgiving at Cherry Street Mission is filled with three meals, games and activities.

"We're having a meal provided a traditional thanksgiving meal turkey all the fixings and it was provided to us by the Real Seafood Company and then Chick-fil-A employees are coming and they're serving it and plating it and serving it to our guests," said VP of Development Nikki Morey.

She added that throughout the day, they will have served about 250 people total.

"A lot of the people we serve are without their family, they have right now scarcity and food scarcity can be very scary," Morey said.

This is why Cherry Street Mission leaders and volunteers try to make the holiday as homelike as possible.

"They may not have a home to be at today for Thanksgiving but we want to replicate a home-like environment for anybody that comes through the door at Cherry Street," said President and CEO of Cherry Street Mission Ann Ebbert.

The day may have been all about cheering people up for the holidays but Morey said COVID-19 is hitting them hard. 

Between now and May, she said Cherry Street Mission has seen an 800% increase in new faces.

"It is getting really tough out there and the thing that scares us is that it's only November and our highest months are December and January," Morey said.

Finding volunteers for Thursday was no problem but Ebbert said they need this kind of help every day, "We always like to remind everybody there's 364 other days of the year and we do this same thing every day."

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