By IVY FARGUHESON
ifarguheson@muncie.gannett.com

(Published Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009) MUNCIE — Competition may be the name of the game during the NFL’s annual Thanksgiving games, but it’s not on anyone’s minds during Muncie’s two community Thanksgiving dinners.

Given the decrease in resources and the increase in need over the last year, some might think the dinner organizers at the Muncie Mission and on the Feed My Sheep committee would be fighting over canned food, frozen turkeys and plates of pumpkin pies, but that’s not been the case in this or any year.

“We’re both serving a critical need and we’ll be successful in meeting those needs,” said Micah Maxwell, organizer of the Feed My Sheep dinner held at Muncie Central High School on Thursday. “I know there tends to be competition for resources, but I wouldn’t think that one event alone could serve the number of people that need Thanksgiving dinners. It’s about meeting those needs.”

Maxwell expects to serve at least 800 meals Thursday afternoon, between the community dinner at Central and the delivered meals for families that request them. Despite a late organizational start, the Feed My Sheep committee collected over 7,000 cans of food, registered over 400 volunteers and matched the $4,000 budget from last year.

For the 79th year, the Muncie Mission will host another community dinner held on their year-old site.

Historically, the Mission volunteers have fed mostly their clients and their families during the Thanksgiving meal with fewer community residents attending the Mission meal than the Feed My Sheep dinner.

That may change this year, though.

Between 50 and 60 community residents have been attending the free Mission lunches during the week, numbers staff haven’t seen in years.

They expect some of those folks will come back for the dinner Thursday afternoon.

“People are just in need. They’re hungry and there a lot more hungry people out there,” said Paula Raines from the Muncie Mission. “We’re just trying to make sure everybody gets a good Thanksgiving meal. We see it as everybody that needs a meal will get a meal.”

Muncie Indiana Transit System will offer free bus rides to both locations on Thursday afternoon.

Last year was the first time it added the Muncie Mission to its Thanksgiving bus route, but as has been the case between the two dinners, it hasn’t been much of a problem.

“It’s worked out pretty well. We just added an extra hour to what we already were doing,” said Mary Gaston of MITS. “This is just a huge way to give back. It isn’t a huge expense, not a huge deal, but it’s a big deal to the people who can use the rides that day.”

Contact reporter Ivy Farguheson at 213-5829.