Church of the Holy Trinity to continue annual turkey dinner

Published 4:58 pm Thursday, October 22, 2020

The Church of the Holy Trinity will continue a 116-year-old tradition with some new twists when it holds its annual turkey dinner on Nov. 19.

“It will be takeout only and it will be a drive-through; not our usual walk up to the door takeout,” dinner chairman Logan Peay said. “Pickup will begin at 10:30 a.m. We’ll have stations outside and people will pull up (for their meal). We’re still trying to work that out. We will have delivery available for large orders.”

Tickets for the dinner are $10 and will be available at Peterson’s, 1400 Washington St.; the church office; or online at the church website, churchoftheholytrinity.org.

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The dinner consists of turkey, cornbread dressing, green beans, cranberry salad, a roll and dessert. The food will be prepared at the church on different days and the meal will be assembled the day of the dinner.

“The day of the dinner we will have different stations that are socially distanced so we don’t have groups of people working together,” Peay said. “We’re going to be spread out. What we’re thinking of doing, we’ll have one station with one person doing everything — putting everything in the takeout box. We’ll have multiple stations with one person putting everything in the box.

“We’re trying to keep everything safe and find the safest way to do it.”

Peay said the church will not hold a bazaar as they did in 2019, and a decision has not been made whether to hold the bake sale. If the bake sale is held, she said, it may be done online where people will order their favorite item.

“This year is a moving target,” she said. “A lot of annual events have had to be canceled this year and we’re just trying to keep this going but be safe at the same time.

According to the church’s history, Holy Trinity’s first turkey dinner was Nov. 23, 1904, and included a bazaar at the volunteer Sothron’s armory.

The menu for the first dinner was oyster stew, turkey sandwiches and chocolate russe. A special item sold at the bazaar was Christmas dolls.

The 1904 turkey dinner was not the church’s first fundraiser.

In 1869, when Holy Trinity was founded, the church women held a three-day fair in December in a location called Harmonia Hall in the downtown area and raised more than $2,500 for the church.

About John Surratt

John Surratt is a graduate of Louisiana State University with a degree in general studies. He has worked as an editor, reporter and photographer for newspapers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post staff since 2011 and covers city government. He and his wife attend St. Paul Catholic Church and he is a member of the Port City Kiwanis Club.

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