Pandemic likely cause of low Thanksgiving dinner turnout at Hendersonville Rescue Mission

The coronavirus pandemic likely played a major role in a greatly diminished turnout for the Hendersonville Rescue Mission’s free Thanksgiving Day dinner that’s open to anyone in need.

https://sites.google.com/view/asxeh
https://sites.google.com/view/nlinm

Mission officials said earlier in the week they didn’t know how many guests to expect, primarily because of the pandemic and the recent surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths across the country.

https://sites.google.com/view/sdza
https://sites.google.com/view/cdfva

The Rev. Tim Jones, a longtime Rescue Mission COO, sounded disappointed two hours after the first round of ham and turkey meals had been served to 45 men and women enrolled in the mission’s residential program.

https://sites.google.com/view/aqwsa
https://sites.google.com/view/aszxsd

By 1 p.m., 90 minutes after the doors were opened to the general public, Jones estimated that only 80 additional meals had been served in 30-minute dining intervals to allow for social distancing – a figure “way below” the 300 dinners served by that time in recent years.

“Usually it’s just packed in here,” he said, adding that more people might show up late Thursday afternoon or in the early evening.

“With as much publicity as the pandemic has had lately - with all these surges (in diagnosed cases) and especially with the new orders about masks and not going out - I think that’s impacted some of it,” Jones added. “I think there are a lot of older folks who stayed away” because they’re at higher risk of complications if they become infected.

Despite the possibility of a low turnout, Jones said canceling the dinner – an annual event since the Rescue Mission opened in 1981 – wasn’t an option.

“We felt like we needed to have it for folks that wanted it,” he said. “It’s kind of reflective of our whole year.”

And what a year it has been, Jones said – one marked by the challenge of simply staying afloat financially while protecting the health and well-being of those the Mission serves.

 

“It feels like I’ve aged 10 years in the last six months,” he said. “Keeping up (with the demand for service) requires constant adjustments to operations.”

Since March, when the pandemic began, the Mission has seen steady increases in homelessness, mainly because there are fewer “exits” from homeless shelters due to clients’ lack of income from job loss.

 

Jones also has seen an increase in clients with mental health issues who can’t afford treatment, or have been placed on waiting lists at health care agencies already overwhelmed by the growing demand.

“COVID has closed a lot of doors,” he said. “Many of those people are in crisis.”

Several men and women in the residential program declined to talk about the circumstances that led them to the Rescue Mission Thursday, as well as two men who were waiting outside for the doors to open at 11:30.

But for many of those who showed up, Thanksgiving dinner provided a brief respite from the daily hunger they endure. For others, including the homeless and disenfranchised, it was time spent inside a clean, warm building, free from the judgment and disapproving looks they often receive.

And for those addicted to drugs or alcohol, it was a time to socialize with friends they had lost touch with on the streets - perhaps to talk about how and where they might find the help they need.

 

Somehow, Jones finds reasons to be thankful.

“If it weren’t for places like Blue Ridge Community Health Services, which has been a godsend for providing hundreds of COVID tests, I don’t know what we’d do,” he said. “This community is so generous and so large, it’s the reason we’ve been able to stay open.

“Some of my peers at other agencies like mine think I’m making it up when I tell them things like that.”