Community Thanksgiving services set

Published 12:00 am Saturday, November 21, 2009

NATCHEZ — Local community members will gather together next week to give thanks for another year.

In Natchez, the community Thanksgiving service will be 6 p.m. Tuesday at New Covenant Presbyterian Church.

The service will feature singing, liturgical readings and a message by the Rev. Birdron Mitchell of Zion Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Miss-Lou Ministerial Alliance secretary the Rev. David O’Conner said.

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“The purpose of the service is to give an opportunity to members of the community to come together and pray their prayer of thanks for the blessings in the community,” he said.

“Normally, we have 150-200 people, and they are usually fairly representative of the community as a whole.”

The service is hosted at a different church every year, and which minister delivers the message also rotates yearly, O’Conner said.

This year, the thanksgiving offering taken up at the service will go to Catholic Charities.

Catholic Charities provides an emergency aid program that — among other things — provides rent, prescription drug and utilities assistance to those in dire straits, O’Conner said,

The organization also operates the Natchez Food Pantry, which provides food baskets to approximately 400 families a month.

“The ministers, just on the basis of being aware of the enormous services rendered by Catholic Charities, voted to allocate the offering to Catholic Charities this time,” O’Conner said.

In Vidalia, the community Thanksgiving service will be at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, and the speaker will be the Rev. Greg Fain, the pastor of Vidalia First Assembly of God.

The Vidalia service will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday.