Jody Ritter’s prospects for Christmas Day were gloomy: She had planned to spend the day alone at home with only junk food to eat. Instead, she joined several friends and hundreds of other lonely and needy people in dining on turkey and trimmings served by Salvation Army volunteers in the Omni William Penn Hotel, Downtown.
“The turkey was good. The stuffing was authentic. The potatoes were real,” said Ritter of Wilkinsburg, who wouldn’t give her age. “It was fabulous.”
Mark Zabierek, director of the Salvation Army’s Christmas dinner program, said about 2,500 people ate dinner Saturday in the William Penn, the Sheraton Station Square and the University of Pittsburgh’s Litchfield Towers. The agency provided about 450 volunteers to serve the food. The hotels and Pitt provided the food and staff to prepare it.
“The hotels (and Pitt) are the engine for this,” Zabierek said. “Financially, we just couldn’t afford to do it.”
Similar scenes played out across the region yesterday.
First Presbyterian Church of Castle Shannon fed people at the church and delivered meals to shut-ins. Preacher Scott Shetter said volunteers prepared about 350 meals.
“We recognize there are a lot of people in the area who can’t get meals on days like today and a lot of people who don’t have families,” Shetter said. “It’s an opportunity for us to talk to them, pray with them and make sure they get fed.”
Lisa Hilty, 45, of Elizabeth Township said volunteering for the Salvation Army is a Christmas tradition for her family. She and her husband, Frank, and son Eamonn have been helping the agency for 15 years.
“We started when my son was 8 years old. He’s 23 now,” Hilty said. “We wanted to teach him what Christmas is all about. Helping other people is the reason for the season, not Santa Claus and ‘Ho, ho, ho.’ That’s the way my mother raised me, and I wanted him to grow up the same way.”
Joe Benson, catering director at the Sheraton Station Square, estimated the dinner for 650 people there cost the hotel $8,000 to $10,000, counting staff salaries.
“We do it to give, to help people who need help,” Benson said, noting that the food was the same as what would have been served to a paying crowd. “We don’t cut back on anything.”
Timothy Lynn, 57, of Spring Garden said the Salvation Army dinner has become an annual tradition for him and several friends. The food is good, he said, but companionship on Christmas Day is even better.
“I’m down here eating my Christmas lunch with friends and people I know and sharing the word of God,” he said, sitting at a Sheraton table with four others. “I have no family in Pittsburgh. This is just a good idea to celebrate so you don’t have to be alone.”
The atmosphere at Abundant Joy Fellowship Church in Tarentum was true to its name. There was plenty of joy being dished out by volunteers to go with the ham dinner they served.
“To some people who come here, this will be their only meal for the day,” said Kenneth Jenkins, 71, a widower from New Kensington.
About 10 miles away in Oakmont, the community dinner being held in the Elks Lodge along Washington Avenue generated Christmas cheer.
Upper Burrell resident Marilyn McNally is an Elks member and chairman of the event, in its seventh year. The Elks expected to serve at least 70 people, she said.
“When I was a waitress and was scheduled to work on Christmas, I hated it,” she said. “But now that I volunteer on Christmas, it’s a whole other world.”
