When it comes to feeding a brood for Thanksgiving, numbers don’t matter to Vera Georgiefski.
She ran around Sts. Peter and Paul Macedonian Church’s kitchen in Crown Point Thanksgiving morning while 18 turkeys roasted to perfection in each of the kitchen’s four ovens. Church members and other volunteers manned the other food stations like a well-oiled machine, anticipating the throngs of parishioners and guests who were coming for a home-cooked meal.
She stirred four trays of stuffing — and not from a box, she insisted.
“Everything is homemade,” Vera Georgiefski said. “Cranberry sauce? No, no, no. Not from a can.”
If the Georgiefskis were hosting Thanksgiving at their Crown Point home, there would be 14 people around their table. The church, on the other hand, had been preparing for at least 400 people since 2 a.m.
“I’d rather be doing it this way,” Vera Georgiefski said, wiping her brow. “My family comes with me here, so 14 people might as well be 340.”
Now in its third year, the Georgiefski family purchased the food this year, Stefan Georgiefski, Vera’s husband, said. He did it mostly because of a man he met waiting to purchase lottery tickets several years ago.
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“We were in Chicago, and there was this 50-year-old man with his son, who had to have been about 18. And we were talking about Thanksgiving dinner, and you want to know what he said his family had? Popcorn and water,” Stefan Georgiefski said. “Can you believe that? I said that day, ‘God help me, I’ll help when I can.'”
Zoe Georgiefski, Vera’s and Stefan’s daughter-in-law, of Crown Point, made sure to bring daughters Nikolina and Marijana to learn the ropes. For them, volunteering helps them remain “humble and thankful.”
“We have so many people who can’t afford to have a nice Thanksgiving meal, and we want to make sure they’re not alone,” Zoe Georgiefski said. “We want them to be fed, and have a warm place, and just be among friends.”
Armando Marin, of Munster, and his brother, Gilbert Sanchez, of Portage Township, volunteer for various causes throughout the year. They, along with Armando’s daughter, Serena, looked for something to do with the Gary Diocese for Thanksgiving but ended up at Sts. Peter and Paul cutting slice upon slice of pumpkin pie.
“They run a tight ship in there,” Armando Marin said of the kitchen.
The church planned to donate all leftovers to various shelters, Stefan Georgiefski said.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.