‘The world is welcome’; Thanksgiving food assistance program

Local organization bringing people together with Thanksgiving meals

Local organization bringing people together with Thanksgiving meals

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — It’s Thanksgiving — that means being with friends, family, and eating lots of food. Now, not everyone has this.

News10NBC’s Bekka Fifield spoke with a local woman who’s been organizing Thanksgiving meals for those who need it for nearly 60 years.

Not only that, but it’s free. Dinner was held at Wegmans in Chili Thursday morning, and was open to anyone who wanted to come.

“It’s not about the food. It’s about not being alone,” organizer Nancy Meyer said.

Nancy started feeding people Thanksgiving dinner in her home 59 years ago.

“It’s for anybody that doesn’t have any place to go or there’s a lot of people, they have relatives that they don’t have a family. And unfortunately, everybody thinks it’s always family, togetherness, love. Unfortunately, that’s not the case,” Nancy said.

But through the help of her loyal volunteers, Nancy has expanded her program to having the dinner at Wegmans.

“It’s almost been 20 years that we’ve been doing it. And it’s just something that brings a lot of joy to us. Just seeing the people and it’s not just homeless. It’s a little bit of everybody. There’s veterans here. There’s people that just don’t have any place to go for holidays and they feel like family when they come,” Volunteer Steve Neerbasch said.

Amy Gootnick has been coming to these dinners for a few years, and says that having this means a lot to her

“Well, because I don’t have any place else to go for Thanksgiving. And it’s nice that Nancy has this for people in the community,” Gootnick said.

By the time News10NBC left at 11:30 a.m., there was already 150 meals passed out to people who came.