Pumpkin Patch church prepares Thanksgiving boxes for needy families
DYERSBURG, Tenn. — One local church worked all day Monday to pack Thanksgiving meals for more than 1,500 people, and all the food came from a project the church has been doing each fall for 12 years. First Christian Church in Dyersburg holds a Pumpkin Patch, and all proceeds go to buy Thanksgiving meals for needy families in the area. This week, the fruits of their labor are paying off. It’s almost like a fairy tale — a pumpkin patch turns into a Thanksgiving meal. “It makes you feel real blessed because God has given me abundance that I can share with other people and then that blesses them because they are getting to have a Thanksgiving that they might not have gotten to have otherwise,” volunteer Debbie Waldron said. “We just believe there is always need, so there is no reason to say ‘OK, that’s enough, we have done enough,'” Pastor Brian Grow said. “We just want to keep growing and growing and growing in this.” Volunteers are working to pack more than 250 boxes of food and Bibles that will go to families in the area so they can have a full turkey meal with peace of mind. “I think it’s really awesome to see people come together and pull something like this off in such big numbers, and our goal is to each year add the number of people we can feed,” Waldron said. This year, the church is feeding around 1,500 people all because of pumpkins. “That Pumpkin Patch that funds all of this, if you think about it, the entire community is a volunteer because every single person that buys a pumpkin has paid for part of this that you see here,” Pastor Grow said. The Pumpkin Patch raised $17,000 this year for the project. The church’s youth ministry finished up packing the boxes Monday night, and they will start handing them out at 10 a.m. Tuesday.
