The nonprofit SHIP organization will serve Easter Sunday dinner for 150 children, women and men in need — with an additional 250 meals to go — on March 27 at the United Reformed Church on 100 West Main St. in Somerville.
Guests will include seniors and others that suffer from hunger, homelessness, poverty, loneliness, abandonment, substance abuse and mental health issues.
While donations for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners have been plentiful, donations have significantly fallen for the Easter dinner. SHIP (Samaritan Homeless Interim Program) has had to use emergency funds in the past three years to buy food for the meal.
Particularly needed are fresh fruit, 10 spiral hams, 100 pounds of fresh potatoes, large canned yams, large bottles of soda, potato chips and pretzels, Easter-decorated cakes, pies, boxes of butter chips and Easter goodies like rolls, candy, jelly beans and colored hard-boiled eggs.
SHIP is also looking for volunteers to serve in the kitchen and dining hall to set up, cook, greet guests, serve meals and help with cleanup. Help is also needed to carve the turkeys and hams on Good Friday, March 25.On Easter Sunday, most volunteers arrive at 11 a.m. and leave around 2 p.m.
Volunteers must pre-register. Call Tom O’Leary at SHIP at 908-393-9545 to say what you would like to donate or to volunteer.
In addition to providing a hot, traditional holiday meal to those in need on Easter, SHIP and St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in Branchburg will distribute food and supplies to needy pet owners on Easter Sunday.
