Last year, volunteers with the Emmanuel Episcopal Church located at 37 West Main Street in Norwich, prepared and served 767 free Thanksgiving dinners on Thanksgiving Day; marking their highest number of meals served to date. This year they expect to provide about 800 meals. (Submitted photo)

NORWICH — The Emmanuel Episcopal Church will be providing free Thanksgiving dinners once again this year. Anyone is invited to the sit down dinner starting at 12 p.m. on Thanksgiving day, November 23, located at 37 Main Street in Norwich.

Delivery service will begin at 10 a.m. and take our service will begin at 11:15 a.m. Information needed for either service will be: name, address, phone number, and number of meals. For delivery orders and take out meals, call 607-334-8801.

According to co-organizer John Klockowski, there were 767 Thanksgiving meals given out last year.

Klockowski said, “The dinners have been a major benefit to the community in the past years and this year we expect to assemble 800 meals; about 30 turkeys. The dinner will include turkey, mashed potatoes, peas, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce.”

He said they also work with Helping Hands at the YMCA and any extra dinners are transported to the YMCA for further support in the community.

“The church began serving Thanksgiving dinners about 15 years ago, thanks to my old friend Charlie McMullen, who is now deceased,” Klockowski said.

He said McMullen started the Taste and See soup kitchen in Oxford over 20 years ago and then about 15 years later, he moved the operation to the Emmanuel Church in Norwich, supplying Thanksgiving dinners to the underserved.

Klockowski said he has been running the dinners along with McMullens previous co-organizer Gary Brookins. He said the Episcopal Soup Kitchen would not survive without the backing of the Episcopal Church, Father Steve White, and all of the hard work and planning by Gary Brookins and numerous volunteers.

“We also remember Father Chuck Taylor who was a huge supporter of this service, said Klockowski.