Local church opens doors to those in need at Christmas

Local church opens doors to those in need at Christmas
BY KENNY WALTER Staff Writer

LONG BRANCH — A city church will once again be helping to ease the burdens of those who are struggling and in need this holiday season.

St. James Church, 300 Broadway, is hosting its seventh annual Christmas Dinner from 4-7 p.m. on Christmas Day.

"The dinner is open to everyone, but will likely be of most benefit to those whose resources are limited and for whom the holiday season provides as much burden as a blessing," a press release from the church states.

"In order to share this time of celebrating peace and joy we are opening the doors of our church and hopefully our hearts to those who come to us."

Parish Administrator Terry Ann Ryan said last week that because of the economy the church is expecting a crowd for dinner.

"Last year we fed over 300 people," Ryan said. "We try to prepare for that every year.

"This year we might even have more considering the state of the economy."

Ryan said the poor economy has resulted in an increase in visitors to the church's food pantry.

"We've seen a very large increase in our food pantry," she said. "We are feeding over 2,000 people a month from our food pantry.

"That's up considerably so we figure we'll probably have more people for the dinner," she added.

Ryan described the holiday menu, which will include turkey and ham as main dishes.

"Everything is prepared fresh," she said. "We have a professional chef that comes in and prepares everything from scratch.

"It's all fresh produce, fresh meat, fresh bread, cake, pies," she added. "Everything is made fresh. The parish members donate and the community."

According to Ryan the meal is prepared on Christmas Eve and is funded by monetary donations to the church.

Church coordinator Theresa Nowell said last week that the church reaches out to the community to get the word out about the dinner,

"We reach out by sending letters to the chamber of commerce, to businesses in town and to other churches so they know we are having this event."

Ryan said that through the years the number of people involved in the dinner has steadily increased.

"It's really been extremely successful," she said.

"Every year we have more and more people volunteer," she added. "Every year we have more and more people make donations."

Ryan said that the dinner requires about 50 volunteers throughout the entire process.

"Usually it takes about 50 or so people total," she said. "Between all the prep work and everything, it's not all done in one day but it takes about 50 people to put it all together."

She said that the planning process starts in September and takes more than 100 hours to plan and prepare.

"There are regular committee meetings to prepare that start in September," she said. "They meet regularly to go over all the details of the dinner.

"I would say man hours put in preparing for the day is probably in excess of 100, 150 hours," she added.

Another part of the dinner that the church has taken up is the addition of delivery service to those who can't get out.

"We also serve the homebound by delivering meals to the senior housing in Long Branch," Ryan said. "We do take orders from the people that are there, a lot of them are shut-ins and can't get out to come here and have dinner with us.

"We have dinners all prepared and we have a staff of volunteers that will deliver the dinners on Christmas Day," she added.

Ryan said that donations are still being accepted and should be sent to St. James Church.

The church can be reached at the website at http://stjames-longbranch.org or at 732-222-1411.

Contact Kenny Walter at

kwalter@gmnews.com.