Community Christmas dinners

PARKERSBURG - Hundreds of people attended community Christmas dinners in Parkersburg Sunday, at First Presbyterian Church on Juliana Street and at Tri-City Baptist Church in south Parkersburg.

People from all over the area came to the Christmas Dinner at First Presbyterian.

Carol Seely, the wife of the Rev. Michael Seely, pastor of First Presbyterian, said they have been doing the dinner for over 20 years.

"Every year, we have a faithful number of people who come and share Christmas Day dinner with their friends and acquaintances," she said. "These are people who are lonely, people who don't have enough money for a good Christmas meal and people who don't have any family around who just want to be around people."

Every year, the church has many volunteers who come out to help serve food and talk with those who come in from single people to couples to whole families.

"We have people who come faithfully every year to volunteer," Seely said. "It is a really fun experience."

Parkersburg resident Yvonne White has been volunteering annually with her husband John for many years.

"The people are why I keep coming back," she said. "We have done it for so long I wouldn't know what else to do."

Melva Pickens, one of the organizers of Sunday's dinner at Tri-City Baptist Church in south Parkersburg, said this was the sixth year for the church's Christmas Day community dinner and about 130 people showed up to enjoy food, music and fellowship. Volunteers also delivered some meals to local senior facilities, she said.

"They're mostly from the community. We have a lot of church people that help out, doing the cooking, the waiting, the cleaning and everything," Pickens said.

Samuel Naylor was at Tri-City Baptist Church on Sunday with his wife, Jennifer. The couple lives in south Parkersburg and has been coming to the church's community Christmas dinner for three years, after seeing a sign about the event in south Parkersburg in 2009.

"My family lives in North Carolina so this really helps us out and gives us somewhere to come and enjoy the fellowship and the church people here giving their time," he said.

Parkersburg resident James Vaughan was making his first visit Sunday to the Tri-City Baptist dinner and was enjoying the fellowship.

"We stopped in, we didn't have any plans for Christmas so it's nice to get out and fellowship with people," he said.

Source: http://www.mariettatimes.com/page/content.detail/id/540984.html

hunter s thompson berkman berkman new beavis and butthead game 7 anya ayoung chee peru earthquake