Free Thanksgiving dinner available tonight

The dinner will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday evening at the community center.
The dinner will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday evening at the community center.

A community Thanksgiving dinner will be hosted 5-7 p.m. tonight at the John C. Harris Community Center located at 350 Sycamore Street.

The meal is the result of the efforts of Maurice Bishop, RJ Pittman, DeShawn Stallworth and Jordan Lottes. The friends, who work together in a promotion business called OneLife, are interested in supporting the community.

"We are a business that wants to give back to the community," Bishop said.

They came up for the idea for a free Thanksgiving dinner recently while meeting to put together their podcast.

"It is geared towards the less fortunate, but everybody is welcome," Bishop said.

They will serve traditional Thanksgiving foods such as turkey, ham, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, corn, rolls and pie. The plan is to make enough for a couple hundred people.

"We're hoping for as many as possible," Bishop said.

Since posting about their plan online, food and monetary donations have poured in.

"We've had tons of support from the community," Stallworth said. "It goes to show how much support and need for this there is."

There are also plans to deliver meals to those unable to leave the house.

They hope the meal will become an annual event. The friends are also thinking about ways to serve others during the Christmas season.

"We are just looking to assist those that could use a little help this holiday season and just shine a little light on the rough year we have all endured," the friends posted on Facebook.