Thanksgiving Dinner Extravaganza

Met Council celebrated our annual Thanksgiving event where volunteer cook and serve a traditional turkey meal to low income seniors. We had over 30 volunteers to make sure that 60 seniors at two housing sites enjoyed a delicious meal with their neighbors.

This meal was made possible by the generous contribution of Monita Buchwald who designed, funded and cooked the dinner.

Thanksgiving Dinner with Low Income Seniors

On Sunday, November 21st, the Met Council Volunteer Department’s annual Thanksgiving extravaganza mobilized over 40 volunteers to feed a traditional turkey dinner to 60 low income senior clients at two Manhattan housing sites. This year we were bigger than ever – doubling our programming to reach more clients at more Met Council community locations.

The day began early on Sunday morning with volunteers from Met Council’s Valuable Players (MVPs), a group of young dedicated leaders in their 20s and 30s. MVP volunteers cooked dinner for 60 in our kosher kitchen and made a traditional Thanksgiving meal that included turkey, string beans, sweet potato and cranberries, parsnip-apple mash, and salad.

After the meal was done, individual volunteers and a UJA-Federation volunteer group served dinner at two of our low income senior housing sites in Manhattan. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, volunteers and clients got together to foster a sense of community and giving.

None of this could have happened without Monita Buchwald, the supervising chef who created the menu, came up with the list of ingredients, executed the cooking, and instructed the volunteers. Monita, a recipe tester for Martha Stewart Living, had been a dedicated volunteer with Met Council and has leaded many cooking classes for our clients.

Click here to see more photos of the event. Our holiday programming is not over yet - to get more involved email volunteer@metcouncil.org. Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Volunteer Extravaganza

The holidays are always a busy time for Met Council’s Volunteer Department. On Sunday, November 22nd, 87 enthusiastic volunteers cooked a turkey dinner, played bingo games, made holiday food packages, and served Thanksgiving meal to 115 of our low income clients.

In the spirit of thankfulness and appreciation, we would like to extend our gratitude to the volunteer groups – Park Avenue Synagogue and UJA-Federation – who made all these events possible. And a special thanks to our volunteer chef, Deborah Gelman of Dujour Foods, who supervised the chopping, sautéing, and roasting of the delicious festive meal.

In the words of a Met Council senior client, "thank you to the young men and women who greeted, socialized, and served the residents . . . I have not seen a finer group of people in this city for awhile." We couldn't agree more!

Happy holidays!