A Thanksgiving Feast in the Bronx!
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December 2, 2022Redemptorist students were immersed in a full week of preparations for an impressive communal Thanksgiving feast at Immaculate Conception Parish in the Bronx. This annual parish celebration had been cancelled for the last few years because of the pandemic, but we had been handing out invitations for several weeks this year during our Hope Walks, when we walk around the neighborhood and give sandwiches to the homeless.
Our preparations began early in the week with decorating the parish hall. People came from all over to help, and those surviving on the streets were ecstatic to have a place to be on Thanksgiving Day. Many of them do not have families to be with to celebrate the holiday. One person we met only the week before said that he was overjoyed to be included because he had no family left and no longer had a place to call home.
Volunteers spent hours preparing for the Thanksgiving Day celebration. Students helped them decorate the hall with hundreds of pumpkins, turkeys, leaves, and plenty of glitter. Some guys even climbed ladders to hang flags from the columns to create a more festive atmosphere.
On Thanksgiving Day, we all shared the responsibilities. Some of us welcomed guests to dinner at the parish hall, some of us helped serve a traditional meal with all the trimmings, and some of us walked hot meals to the homebound in the neighborhood. Others directed and dispatched volunteers, and we all enjoyed visiting with our special guests. It was a heartwarming experience to help create a wonderful atmosphere that ensured that everyone in the neighborhood had an opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving.
Ensuring that we could dutifully provide a great Thanksgiving for the neighborhood, our community invited confreres from Brooklyn to enjoy a special Thanksgiving celebration a few days earlier. Br. Gene Patin and Fr. Gary Lauenstein cooked up a real feast: roasted turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash puree, cranberry sauce made from scratch and green bean casserole. We came home from school to enjoy various appetizers, snacks and a charcuterie board in the library before going downstairs for our incredible meal. Fr. Bob Wojtek was responsible for the entertainment, which included trivia games and quizzes that surprised and delighted us all. As our celebration ended, I brought Christmas decorations from the basement up to the student floor. Trust me – there are a lot!
Throughout the week, Christmas decorations began popping up – a little wreath here, some garland there, and a small Christmas tree in the corner. On Friday after Thanksgiving, I pulled out my ladder and began the process of hanging lights from the ceiling and walls in our student hallway. I decorated the same way last year, but this year we added more lights and hung them even higher! John Nguyen put up an Advent wreath in the chapel and added a wreath adorned with purple bows to the chapel door.
We ended the week with some of the students and I going to the St. John Neumann Shrine in Philadelphia to lead a Youth Retreat for members of the Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Movement. John, Son Lai, Dang Nguyen and I helped set up the hall for the retreat on Saturday, and on Sunday we led retreatants in praise and worship, trivia, arts and crafts, and prayer to help them reflect on the Advent Season.
The retreat was a great opportunity for us to collaborate on creating plans, presentations, and music. While our primary group was for kids ten and younger, we helped the other youth leaders choreograph a dance set to Britt Nicole’s “Set the World On Fire.”
For a dance routine that we started learning two hours before the event, I’d say we did pretty good! We are so grateful for the opportunity to work with the youth and help them grow closer to God.
