A Community Lunch will be held in Young on Christmas Day at Hennesy Catholic College Hall from 11:00 am by Vinnies. It aims to be a celebration that anyone can enjoy.
Sharon McCoy, Regional Support Leader for St Vincent’s, spoke to the Young News about the event and what to expect.
“It’s been held for a lot of years as a combined event with the Catholic Church Parish, and they stopped it during Covid, and then it kicked off again. This will be our third year running since it came back.
“We have so many people in the community who don’t have anyone to spend Christmas with or can’t afford to put a nice spread on the table for Christmas, so this is the way of just bringing everybody together and making sure everybody enjoys Christmas and gets something decent to eat.
“We had just under 100 people attend last year’s event.
“We see a lot of people in need at Christmas time here locally, and so we thought it would be nice to get it going again and ensure they’ve got somewhere to spend Christmas.”
Sharon also spoke about the food that will be served on the day.
“It will be the same as last year. We have roast lamb, hams, salads, desserts, cherry pies, numerous slices and cakes donated by people locally.”
If you have no way to get there, do not worry, as they have options for you.
“Community Transport did it last year, and we haven’t been able to confirm as yet whether they’re able to do the same this year, but we’ll find someone who can. We had a few people who didn’t have transport last year, and we organised to pick them up and bring them along and then drop them home afterwards. So we’re hoping to do the same again this year.
“We would prefer people to RSVP, but we definitely take walk-ins on the day. It’s not limited to people putting their name down prior. It’s just so we can get an idea for catering purposes and how many to seat on the day.
“I believe we had about 50 RSVPs last year, and we ended up catering for about 100 people.
“Just come along and have a great time. Everyone gets to take a little gift home.
“It’s a great atmosphere and just a bit of fun. People are welcome, whether they’ve got someone to spend Christmas with or not. We welcome families, people new to the area, who might not have a lot of family around. We don’t want anyone feeling lonely or displaced at all. Everyone is welcome, so please come along.”
– Jack Murray
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