Thanksgiving meals for neighbors and responders

2004–2006

An established neighborhood tradition

The December 2004 report described volunteers serving dinner at Calvary–St. George’s soup kitchen and bringing meals to officers working the holiday. Homemade pies and cookies also reached sanitation and postal workers, Park caretakers and other people serving the neighborhood. A photograph shows Kathleen Scupp helping with dinner.

In 2005, the children’s committee delivered pies and cards to the Park caretakers and Emergency Service Unit Truck 1. The following year, the Gramercy Park Block Association’s Thanksgiving work included meals at Kenmore Hall and for officers, alongside baked goods delivered to neighborhood workers. These earlier accounts show the tradition already established well before the reports below.

A day of shared work

In 2013, the Block Association’s volunteers joined the Thanksgiving dinner organized by the Rev. Jacob Smith and Melina Smith at Calvary–St. George’s. The published account reported more than 350 guests, with much of the food provided by the Bowery Mission.

Neighbors contributed pies, helped set up, served guests and stayed to clean up. Children took part alongside adults. The Block Association also arranged a donation of one hundred flower arrangements from Fresh Direct.

For those on duty

A separate Thanksgiving meal thanked the detectives of Emergency Service Truck 1 for their service. Arlene Harrison and the Block Association’s Events Committee chair Kathleen Scupp organized it, with food from Fresh Direct and homemade dishes and table decorations provided by Scupp.

The 2014 newsletter documented the tradition again, including dinner for detectives working that day and children preparing cards and signs for the community meal at St. George’s.

2015

Returning to the shared tables

In December 2015, the Block Association reported that volunteers had served three hundred people at St. George’s. Emergency Service Unit officers also received a Thanksgiving meal, with food from Fresh Direct and dishes prepared by Kathleen Scupp.

More than a holiday invitation

For the wider year-round partnership, read about Common Table.