Preparing a Thanksgiving meal for one’s own family is tough enough, but when you are cooking for a few hundred members of your community it becomes a whole other kind of work.

But for Water Avenue Baptist Church member Johnny Brewer, the work it took to help those less fortunate in Selma was a blessing.

“We’re just doing the Lord’s work, and hoping to feed someone who is hungry,” Brewer said Thursday. “We are prepared to feed 300 people. As far as working and cooking, we’ve spent about two days getting ready for today.”

With people helping her prepare the meal in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, Brewer said the spread would look like any holiday meal found on kitchen tables throughout Selma.

“We’re serving turkey, ham, dressing, string beans, candied yams, cranberry sauce,” Brewer said. “Just about everything you could ask for.”

Fellow church member Marcia Carr said this was her fourth year to volunteer to serve meals on Thanksgiving, and she also enjoyed the work that went into this act of charity.

“Four years ago, I saw in the paper that they were going to be feeding people and they were asking for volunteers,” Carr said. “So I called up, and I’ve been here ever since.”

Across town, volunteers from Selma’s Gospel Tabernacle Church were preparing and serving Thanksgiving meals to residents of the Minnie B. Anderson neighborhood.

Volunteer Sharon Francis Thomas was on hand to help prepare and serve the meals Thursday morning, and said it was an honor to take part in such an event.

“Basically we want to share with the folks out here all that the Lord has blessed us with,” Thomas said. “It’s important to be able to do this on the holiday, but I don’t think this work should be limited to the holiday.”

Gospel Tabernacle Church pastor John E. Grayson said everything shaped to make Thursday a beautiful day for both his volunteers and the community members they were helping.

“We’ve got sunshine and it’s been a good cool morning for us,” Grayson said. “We’ve been blessed to do this for sometime now, and we just love doing it. Events like this are very needed out here.”

Minnie B. Anderson neighborhood resident Charlotte Phillips said the work of Gospel Tabernacle Church is greatly appreciated not only on the holidays but throughout the year, as church volunteers serve meals in the neighborhood every other weekend.

“It’s a blessing, because a lot of people out here don’t really have anything,” Phillips said. “And a lot of people out here, when they see that church truck or van come, they can be so thankful for the people coming out here to help.”