Hungry, homeless served meal and Thanksgiving spirit in Rock Hill

If the spirit of Thanksgiving is looking in your rear-view mirror early Thursday morning, seeing a homeless man and his wife living behind a gas station car wash, and inviting them to your church for a free meal that afternoon, then the spirit was alive and well with Holley Hinson in Rock Hill.

If the Thanksgiving spirit means sending out to-go plates of food to people you’ve never met, who live in neighborhoods where families often do not have enough to eat, then Hinson’s pastor, Jonathan Pannell of Emmanuel Church of the Nazarene, embodied that spirit on Thursday.

And, if having the spirit of Thanksgiving means you deliver 50 turkey lunches to the needy in your daughter’s memory and return to the kitchen to say, “We’re gonna take 50 more,” then Paul Elkins had the Thanksgiving spirit in spades as he and others carried plate after plate to waiting cars.

At least 300 plates – with turkey, ham, dressing, corn, mashed potatoes, bread, green beans, and more – left Rock Hill’s Emmanuel Church of the Nazarene on Thursday afternoon. Dozens more were served inside, where church members and volunteers cooked the meals, piled food on the plates and visited with those who were there because they had nowhere else to go for the holiday.

Some were there because of people like Hinson, who personally invited the homeless and hungry around Rock Hill. Around 7:30 a.m. Thursday, she was leaving a gas station parking lot when she looked in her rear-view mirror and saw a need.

“I saw a homeless man crawling over the wall of the car wash,” she said. “His wife was sitting on the ground – out in the cold – behind the wall.”

Hinson had fliers in her car for Emmanuel’s free Thanksgiving meal. She took one to the couple and told them to call the church for a ride before lunch. Later, the wife showed up and took a meal back for her husband.

The church also gave them a tarp and some other supplies, because the tent they’d been living in was flooded and damaged during recent heavy rains.

For those who couldn’t travel to the church Thursday, Pannell and his band of volunteers took meals to Rock Hill neighborhoods.

“So many of us take for granted the things we have,” he said. “And, doing things like this, you get to see the need.”

Elkins was one of those who shuttled Thanksgiving meals around town on Thursday. His daughter Emily Elkins – who became a local celebrity and teen known nationwide for her generosity – died in March of cancer. She was 16.

Emily told her dad and mom, Annie Brakefield, that she wanted the seniors at Divine Manor Assisted Living in Rock Hill taken care of. So, Brakefield and others delivered 45 plates of food there from Emmanuel on Thursday. Next weekend, for the fourth annual Emily’s Wish, her family, friends and the Dragonfly Sisters will take gifts to Divine Manor.

For Elkins, the food delivery was about doing “anything to make everybody’s Thanksgiving a little bit better.”

Emily’s mom said her daughter “had a soft spot for elderly, kids, homeless – anybody in need.”

Helping deliver meals on Thursday, Brakefield said, was a gesture to show those suffering or lonely “that they’re not alone.”

Thanksgiving spirit to continue

This year was Emmanuel church’s first time serving a Thanksgiving meal. Marty DuBose headed up the organization of the cooks, the servers, the delivery crews and the inside tables.

But she refused to take any credit, saying it was a team effort with many people pitching in to cook nearly 75 pounds of turkey and 30 pounds of ham – not to mention the countless trays of side dishes and desserts.

At the peak lunch hour, DuBose was moved to tears in the church fellowship hall. Last year, she was diagnosed with cancer. She’s thankful, she said, to be able to help others, and she cried when she saw people eating who might have gone hungry on Thanksgiving without the church meal.

“For some,” she said, “this is all they’ll have.”

Lester Waldrop, the man behind the church’s drive to feed the hungry this year, was too sick to attend. His wife Brenda was there to help serve food.

“I wish he could have been here,” she said. “It’s just a wonderful feeling.”

The Waldrops, both Rock Hill natives, have attended Emmanuel since 2008. Waldrop said her husband has wanted to be part of a church holiday feeding program for a long time.

“This church is blessed with people that do give,” she said. “And when they see a need, they don’t run from it.”

The Thanksgiving spirit at Emmanuel will continue well after the lunches are gone and the kitchen is cleaned. Some from the church spent time with visitors on Thursday, writing down their names, phone numbers and addresses, if they had one. They made a list of items each adult and child needs.

One of those was 70-year-old Veda Canady of Rock Hill. She came to the church for lunch after receiving a flier in her mailbox.

Canady not only needed a meal Thursday, she’ll also need a new place to live in three days. She can no longer stay in the home she has due to a relative’s dying and ownership changing.

The church will try to help.

Three months ago, her home near the Rock Hill airport was broken into.

“I’m doing the best I can,” Canady said. “They took everything I had.”

She needs a winter coat, so the church added that to its list.

Canady shuffled out the door Thursday after lunch, with a to-go plate and two cupcakes. A volunteer was waiting in the parking lot to drive her home – another person in Rock Hill showing the Thanksgiving spirit to those who needed it most this week.

This story was originally published November 26, 2015 at 2:44 PM with the headline "Hungry, homeless served meal and Thanksgiving spirit in Rock Hill."