Broken Arrow Church Provides Thanksgiving Meals For Families

Sitting down for a meal together is an important part of Thanksgiving, but putting food on the table can be expensive.

Anthem Church in Broken Arrow recognizes that and has partnered with Union Public Schools to help more than 200 families.

The district identifies families in need and the church does the rest, providing a list of food items to its members to fill brown paper bags.

"We just set them out last week and all 220 bags were all taken over two Sundays," said Associate Pastor Andrew Hahn.

The list includes all the fixings for a Thanksgiving feast and church leaders go out and purchase the frozen turkeys.

Anthem Church has been doing this Thanksgiving Outreach for nearly a decade.

"We want to be a church that does whatever it takes to take the good news of Jesus out into our community," Hahn said.

Once all the bags are filled and returned to the church, the outreach team will hand-deliver each one to the families. Hahn said every year they are met with so much gratitude.

"The memory that is burned into my mind is a single mom with her little daughter," he continued saying, "When we came to the door, she had a coloring sheet of a turkey and it just said thank you."

For those who do not have the ability to cook their own meal, volunteers also help with that.

"There are some families living in a hotel, so this Friday before the Thanksgiving Outreach, a team of people will come, they will spend their whole day cooking meals for families so that on Saturday we are delivering them in a way that they can actually heat them up in the microwave."

Hahn said some of the volunteers are Union Public Schools' teachers who are eager to support the cause.

He said the extra effort ensures no table is empty this Thanksgiving.