The Salvation Army hosted its first ever Thanksgiving turkey dinner in Windsor Sunday.
Susan Falodun and her staff orchestrated the meal at the Salvation Army's community centre on the corner of Church and Park St. — in large part with 40 turkeys donated by local philanthropist Sam Sinjari. The Downtown Mission held its annual Thanksgiving luncheon just around the corner and it was busy, according to Executive Director Ron Dunn.
Falodun tells AM800 News the fact that the dinner crowd was just as busy shows, "it's actually a need and we intend to go from here to make it an annual thing that we do," she says.
She says the attendance levels of holiday meals shows ignoring a problem won't make it go away.
"Homelessness is real, it's something we often shy away from, but it's real and we need to face it," she says. "There's hunger there's poverty and there's need for people to just come together and have companionship."
The Salvation Army prepared to serve 350 people Sunday night.
Dunn says Windsor's Downtown Mission served 225 people at its Thanksgiving luncheon earlier in the day.
— with files from AM800's Zander Broeckel.