For the 10th consecutive year, the Community Thanksgiving Meal effort was a tremendous success, this year feeding nearly 2,200 deserving residents of Clinton County, according to Melissa Tallent, one of the event organizers who has been involved since the beginning, and spoke to the Clinton County News after last week’s effort had ended.

“We served 2,180 meals this year, and we continued to receive calls long after all the meals had been distributed, Tallent said. “There are many in our community who need a helping hand, especially this time of year, and that has never been more apparent.”

Tallent noted that again this year, the efforts of the many volunteers hadn’t gone unnoticed, as was evidenced by the many expressions of thanks that were directed their way when the food deliveries were made on Thanksgiving day, with some noting that it wasn’t just the food they had been looking forward to for the holiday delivery.

“The messages of gratitude we received were heart warming, with many saying they would have had no food if not for the meals we delivered,” Tallent said. “Others expressed to us that they lived alone and had no family, and would not have seen a friendly face if not for our delivery team that brought their meals.”

Tallent said that for most of the volunteers who work to prepare and assemble the food for the Community Thanksgiving Meal program each year, those messages of thanks from other members of our community are one of the reasons most return to the prep tables year after year.

“On the tenth anniversary of the Community Thanksgiving Meal, those messages are the reminder of why we do this meal each year, and why we hope that it will continue to grow and more members of our community will choose to get involved,” Tallent said.

Tallent, who along with her daughter, Kiley Hoppe, founded the program a decade ago, won’t take credit for the success of the program alone, but instead always makes it a point to stress that it’s a community effort and gives the entire group of volunteers the credit for the program’s continued success.

“I want to extend a special thank you to Hunter Shearer and his team at Hunter’s BBQ, Clear Fork Baptist Church, Kelly Latham Re/Max Country Living, and Fitzgerald Collision and Repair,” Tallent said. “I also want to thank our team of volunteers, some of whom have been with us for all ten years, for being part of our ‘Thanksgiving family’ and working so hard year after year to make this meal happen. We couldn’t do the Community Thanksgiving Meal without them!”

In the photos here, beginning at top left, Eli Dearborn and Cannon Young begin shredding meat from smoked turkeys and at top right, Melissa Tallent and Kelly Latham were just two of many volunteers working the assembly lines of filling food plates. At left, Zach McFall is shown dipping green beans from a large transport cooler into a serving tray.