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\u201c<\/em>Prior to my time here, this congregation had been going down on Christmas Eve and serving lunch with Catholic Charities [in Nashville],\u201d he explained. \u201cWhen I started to work with them during those times, they expressed an interest to do more of these projects. And then one Christmas Eve, we [had] a scheduling conflict, and they had accidentally assigned different volunteer groups to different churches to come serve that day. So we had double the volunteers for the event at Catholic Charities. So we thought: What if we could do this more frequently and closer to home? And if they have all the volunteers they need there, we knew we weren\u2019t abandoning them. We could convert to using our own space,\u2014you know\u2014cooking, preparing, hosting in our own space, and opening the doors to our own community, right here, versus an hour away in Nashville. So that\u2019s how it got started. We decided to make this a monthly event instead of once a year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plans went into motion, and upon the dinner launching, Thompson said they saw an immediate response from the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe response has been good,\u201d said Thompson. \u201cWe get people that we see regularly at Good Samaritan. We get people who are food insecure, and they\u2019re coming here for food. But then what\u2019s also interesting is [that] we get people we don\u2019t see at \u2018Good Sam,\u2019 needing food but also community and conversation. Maybe it\u2019s a widow who\u2019s mostly at home alone, and it\u2019s the conversation and community that is getting her out of the house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thompson pointed out that the beauty of the dinners is being able to fill both the body and the soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI have said from the pulpit here, people could be hungry for multiple things,\u201d he said. \u201cThey can be hungry for food. They can also just be hungry for a warm place to be. They can be hungry for hospitality, [or] they can be hungry for social interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even through COVID, the meals were still provided by volunteers, bringing both food and fellowship to those in need in a safe way. Now that things are getting back to normal, people are returning to the dinners provided by volunteers, safely bringing food and fellowship to those in need.Thompson added that over the years, he and a group of volunteers have helped those in need walk through both good and bad times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOver the years, I\u2019ve done a wedding for one of the regular attendees. It was actually a COVID wedding, so we did it under the tent on the front lawn. We\u2019ve also done a funeral for a regular who had passed away.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thompson welcomes those in need of a hot meal and good fellowship to come and reap the benefits of both. GN<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Hope dinner is a monthly event at the First Presbyterian Church in Manchester and offers food and fellowship to those in need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-december"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnewsmags.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/DSC_8187-comments-1-1-1024x683.jpg\")
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