Six members from the Holy Trinity Church Community volunteered on Saturday, November 29, 2014, the weekend of Thanksgiving, to prepare and serve at the Covenant Soup Kitchen at Saint Paul Episcopal Church, our neighbors on Valley Street, in Willimantic.

In the past 12 months, on three separate occasions, different parishioners from HTOC have served in what is known as the Isiah 58 Ministry, and each has been incredibly moved by this experience. Our little church community is humbled and thankful for the opportunity to participate in this wonderful ministry to feed the homeless.

In 2015, three dates have already been promised to Holy Trinity (February 14, June 20, October 24). We may look into adding at least one other Saturday, perhaps maybe two.

Following are thoughts from (Reader) Rob Giokas, along with Denise & Jason Geeza, who served on November 29, 2014. Others who served included Alex Fox, and Jon & Merci Matcheson.

All day I felt a sense of peace over me, a feeling of this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life, helping those in need.  I was incredibly humbled by the respect and gratitude of those we fed. But what struck me most was when the coordinator asked the people if someone would lead them in prayer prior to their meal. An older gentlemen raised his hand and offered a prayer thanking God for sending us that day, to prepare a meal and serve them.  Too often in life we overlook the obvious.  Everything is from God; without Him we are nothing.  This man, who, at a time in his life is at a low point, didn't neglect the obvious and thanked God.  He is a true Christian.  This experience was very meaningful to me.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to enrich ourselves and be reminded of God's love.  I will certainly plan on helping out again.

- Denise Geeza

My wife had been saying for a while that we should volunteer at a soup kitchen nearby. She did it quite frequently growing up and especially since our son was born, she wanted to make sure that we let him see that side of life too; that many people aren't as fortunate as us but we need to be compassionate to them just like anyone else.

What struck me most about working there was how grateful so many of the people were. The second thing that struck me was that this wasn't a once-a-week service; this was daily work that was done to help these people. There are stockpiles of food that would make any "doomsday prepper" blush; yet this would all be shortly exhausted if the kitchen wasn't regularly receiving donations. The ingredients we used were measured in large quantities - trays of spaghetti, many chickens, boxes of sandwiches, crates of milk boxes, pounds of butter ... and very little of it went to waste.

-Rob Giokas

I actually did not want to go and I tried to get our daughter to go in my place, but my wife Denise would not let that happen. At first, it felt like any big dinner we were preparing for a church function, but when I realized it was a meal for people that rely on it daily, my attitude changed.  I became a servant to the woman in charge, and to the diverse group of people that were thankful for us being there. Aside from being told to stop spooning out so much fruit salad, I would serve at the kitchen every day if I could.

- Jason Geeza

What a humbling experience! It struck me that there will always be  people better off as well as worse off than the people we served. They were all very appreciative of our service. Everyone was so polite. I felt saddened that there were so many in need and yet happy that so many could be fed and warmed. I look forward to helping out again.

- Merci Matcheson