Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Catholic Charities ready to serve 17,000 meals, with turkey and all the trimmings

Catholic Charities Thanksgiving Dinner

Diners at Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving Day, 2015. Catholic Charities will again be serving Thanksgiving meals at its dining hall and via deliveries.

Catholic Charities Prepares for the Holidays

Sous chef Ashley Frazier measures spices for Lieds Meatloaf Lunch at Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021.  STEVE MARCUS Launch slideshow »

At Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, Gene Benzel and his staff were hustling last week to finish preparing thousands of Thanksgiving meals for the less fortunate.

A crew was chopping up and boiling potatoes, while Benzel, director of culinary operations for the 80-year-old nonprofit, surveyed the growing stacks of frozen dinners in several industrial freezers.

The scene is not much different from other weeks for the charity, which operates a community kitchen for the needy and Meals on Wheels for elderly clients in Las Vegas and North Las Vegas.

But with Thanksgiving fast approaching, a little extra was going into the 17,000 meals being prepared in advance, Benzel said.

“We bump it up a little bit, give them a little bit more cranberry sauce or maybe more stuffing or mashed potatoes and gravy. We make sure that the meal is a traditional Thanksgiving,” he said. “We even make pumpkin pie.”

Catholic Charities' annual Thanksgiving Day dining-in meal will be served today from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at its St. Vincent Lied Dining Facility, 1502 N. Main St. Hundreds of meals also will be delivered to clients.

The pandemic has made securing supplies more difficult because of shortages caused by supply chain disruptions and other issues, said Mike Schmidt, vice president of food services.

“We’re going from supplier to supplier to supplier to supplier,” he said, noting the problem started more than a year ago with shortages of meat caused by the closure of processing plants hit with COVID outbreaks.

The good news is that there hasn’t been a problem getting turkeys this year, Schmit said. Most of the birds were ordered as early as February, and other Thanksgiving mainstays were also ordered ahead of time, he said.

“It falls on the shoulders of the chefs to make decisions,” Schmit said.

Securing nearly any kind of nonperishable food has been a logistical headache, said Larry Scott, the chief operating officer at Three Square food bank. It services Catholic Charities, among other local communal kitchens and pantries.

Scott said Three Square secured most of its turkeys several months ago and paid for them before the price of poultry skyrocketed.

Three Square has been scrambling to help as many people as possible this holiday season.

“Food insecurity doesn’t change. A hungry person is going to be hungry on July 5 as equally as they might be on Thanksgiving Day,” Scott said. “But we certainly, as a community, rally around those people and serve them much more bountifully over the holidays.”

Catholic Charities also operates a food pantry, which has been strained since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Leslie Carmine, the group’s director of community relations.

Boxes of food prepared ahead of Thanksgiving were so heavy they had to be wheeled out to people's vehicles in large red carts.

Carmine said Catholic Charities was still in need of nonperishable food items.

“We’re hoping this week we’ll be getting more. We do have some food drives coming up. So we’re very grateful and hopeful for the food drives,” Carmine said.

For those looking to help, Catholic Charities is hiring for paid positions and is always looking for volunteers, Carmine said. People can also make a donation directly to Catholic Charities or generate donations through their AmazonSmile wish list.

For those in need of help, the food pantry is open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. The community kitchen serves one meal a day from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Catholic Charities campus at 1501 Las Vegas Blvd. North.

“If they’re on the street trying to survive through a homeless situation, they’re literally trying to survive for their life because it’s in danger every single minute,” Carmine said. “So when they come here, we want them to feel a sense of peace, and they can just think about eating for the day.”