Lakes Region groups bring people together for holiday meals, gifts

The Lakes Region is coming together once again to provide for people who need them for the Christmas and holiday season.

The First Congregational Church of Gilford in collaboration with the Laconia Rod and Gun Club, is having a Chrismtas Dinner on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, at 1pm. Doors open at 12:30pm. The dinner will be a ham dinner, with potatoes, candied carrots, green bean casserole, rolls, and homemade desserts made by volunteers. The food was purchased through Vista Foods supermarket in Laconia. While the meal is free, reservations are required by Dec. 20. Anyone interested should call the church at 603-524-3289.

Carol Michael with the church spoke to why this event is put on every year.

“The whole point is to get everybody together at Christmas Day so they are not lonely and they have a place to go,” she said.

Despite the meal happening around lunch time, it is called a dinner as it will be a large meal. Michael said that Christmas dinner growing up usually occurs when church lets out in the afternoon.

“When I grew up, here in New England, Dinner is the biggest meal of the day,” she said. “We always called it Christmas dinner.”

St. Vincent de Paul over the past month has provided children up to 18, with clothing, accessories and toys for the holiday season. Socks, underwear, diapers, personal hygiene products like toothbrushes and shampoo.

The Christmas Angel program had people come to the food pantry on designated days, and fill out a form, asking for sizes of for clothes, and other identifying questions. The families then wait outside, waiting for their number to be called over the loudspeaker. Sue Page, a volunteer for the Children’s Foundation at SVDP, said some parents get emotional after receiving their package.

“When they get their package, a lot of them are brought to tears, because who knows what’s going on at home,” Page said.

Toys are a new addition to the package this year. All toys were donated. Toys included to fire trucks and Funko pops, to small tricycles. Churches like St. Andre Bassett and the Gilford Community Church also donated gifts to the program. Volunteers from SVDP would leave tags on a tree that described each child who would be getting a gift. These gifts would be placed in various gift wrappings and brought back to SVDP. Page acknowledged how special it is to have toys this year.

“We don’t usually do toys, but we had so many generous donors,” she said. “We do age-appropriate toys.”

The Laconia Senior Center is also hosting a holiday meal on Dec. 19, at 11:30am. Those in attendance will receive braised beef, cheese and crackers, cookies, finger foods, then dessert to wrap it up. They encourage a $3 donation for the meal.

It is recommended that people sign up in advance so they know how much food to prepare, but they also will accept someone who walks in day-of, as they don’t want to turn anybody away. Laconia Senior Center Coordinator Sandy McCarn emphasized this point.

“There should be plenty,” she said. “There’s always room for one more at the table.”

The Northfield-Tilton Congregational Church will also be handing out baskets of food this-coming Tuesday, on Dec. 17, from 9am-11am, on a first-come first-serve basis until they run out. Despite handing out baskets for the Christmas season, the baskets will contain leftover food from their Thanksgiving baskets in November, as they were not able to fundraise the money to create unique Christmas baskets this year due to various circumstances. This includes whole frozen turkeys. Volunteer Star Murphy oversees these baskets for the food pantry at the church, and said she feels regrettable that they are not able to provide their normal Christmas baskets. But she still wanted to give something to the community.

“Every single one is going to be a little different,” Murphy said. “It’s anything that I have remaining.”

The food pantry is accepting monetary donations, as well as any non-perishable donations. Any donations can be brought in person on Monday from 10am-12pm, or between 7:30am to 11am. You can also reach the food pantry at 603-800-1328, with any inquiries.

Franklin Mayor Desiree McLaughlin is hosting a free Christmas meal in collaboration with the Franklin Rotary Club at the Episcopal Mission church, on Dec. 20, at 5pm. The food selection is still to be determined, but is expected to have lasagna, meatballs and ham. There will be sit-down and takeout offered. There is no RSVP required to attend. Last year, the dinner was hosted at McLaughlin’s laundromat, where over 100 people were seated and close to 50 takeout containers.

“For our little community, that’s big,” McLaughlin said.

Councilor-elect Tom Boyce will dress up as Santa, and another volunteer will dress up as the grinch, or an elf.

The Mayor also does a Thanksgiving dinner each year, which is bigger than the Christmas dinner. Both aim to bring the community together and provide food for those who need it.

“I wanted it to be for people who don’t have the opportunity to have Thanksgiving,” McLaughlin said. “And I realized that there was a lot of people.”