From Barb Williams, Director of Wednesday Night Dinner

This past year has been especially exciting and successful with new partnerships with Trader Joe’s and Cameron Catering, a smooth elder transition from Tom Oines to Frank Holman, revival of the WND prayer team, and last (but not least) adapting our dinner to serve take-out boxes as a result of COVID.

While some non-profits have stopped serving meals during the pandemic, we are happy to continue to serve hot, homemade to-go dinners every Wednesday evening from 5:30 to 6:30 at the doors to the Fellowship Hall. Our attendance is down only slightly to about 120 dinners per week. Doug Rutherford is a creative chef and some of our dinners include chicken enchiladas with Mexican rice and green salad, baked chicken with paprika rub and potatoes in a cream sauce, and the forever favorite big beefy burritos. In addition, through our partnership with Queen Anne Trader Joe’s, we are able to offer soon-to-be-expired bread, canned goods, fresh fruits and vegetables, and frozen goods to our participants. We receive fancy foods like frozen shrimp, spanakopita triangles, and Mexican chimichangas from www.cameroncatering.com. Please consider supporting them by ordering a take-out meal at their web site.

All volunteers log into a notebook and their temperatures are taken before going to work. We try to maintain six feet of social distancing during food prep and packaging. All participants are required

MANY THANKS

To our partners and local businesses that support Wednesday Night Dinner:

to wear masks as they line-up in a single file outside, six feet apart, before pick- ing up their meal box. They all miss the community inside the Fellowship Hall that they shared before the pandemic. Yet despite these changes, all are thankful for the hot meal. And we recently had a raffle for Seahawks gear and tie-dyed colorful face masks to add to the fun of some of our evenings together. We thank God for keeping us all COVID-free and healthy.

We are looking forward to our special Thanksgiving dinner in November and our Christmas celebration in December. You can participate in our celebration by purchasing $25 Safeway, Starbucks, or Amazon gift cards for the annual Giving Tree. Mail the cards to Bethany Presbyterian Church at 3 Howe Street Seattle, or drop them off at the church office on Fridays between December 1 and December 20.

You can also serve our Wednesday Night Dinner community by joining our prayer team via Zoom, donating lightly used winter jackets or men’s jeans, or making a special end-of-year monetary donation to our WND fund. Let me know if you would like to participate at barbw@bethanypc.org.

Finally, the Wednesday Night Dinner is a community of Bethany and you are invited to join the line and take home a free meal any Wednesday evening.