CHAPMANVILLE — There will be free Thanksgiving Day dinners given out tomorrow starting at 11 a.m. at Chapmanville Regional High School. The In Action group will be giving the dinners away at no charge until everyone who wants a dinner is fed.

Ron "LeeLee" Jones, the organizer of the charity dinner, said he wanted to get his son involved in community service, but there really wasn't any groups that put on a community Thanksgiving dinner. So, he founded the In Action group and this is the second year they have served Thanksgiving dinner.

"We're hosting our second annual community Thanksgiving dinner. We have been gathering our resources in the community and we expect to serve about 500 people," Jones said. "We served about 320 people last year at the PRIDE in Logan office. We'll deliver meals and you can dine in, too.

"It was a vision that I had. I was motivated because I have a 5-year-old son and I think community service is really important."

Jones said several volunteers have been involved and will be working tomorrow to serve the dinners to whoever want them.

"I have faith in people and all you have to do is give them an opportunity to serve and they always step up to the plate," Jones said.

School groups are involved, as well as local organizations, such as the Kiwanis Club, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts and others.

"We have a lot of different community organizations from the Key Club at the high schools to the Kiwanis Clubs to Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts and Girls Scouts who have helped us," Jones said.

According to Jones, canned food has been collected for the dinner and most of that came from the Chapmanville elementary schools.

"Chapmanville East raised about 2,800 food items for the dinner and Chapmanville West gathered close to 1,000," Jones said. This is really a huge, community effort."

Jones said anyone can come and share in the dinner.

"It's open to anybody," Jones said. "We're serving traditional Thanksgiving dinner — turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, cranberry salad and a drink and desert. We're trying to feed everyone."

Jones said the group will be delivering meals all over the county.

"We're delivering all the way over to Buffalo Creek in Man all the way to Big Creek here in Chapmanville, so we're serving the entire county. It's gotten pretty big, but the way things are with the economy, this may be something people need. We're going to be working as hard as we need to to make sure everyone who needs to be fed gets fed."

For more information, call 304-752-9450 or 304-687-9520.

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To reach Staff Writer Michael Browning with news tips, questions or comments, please call him at 304-752-6950, extension 309, or e-mail him at mbrowning@loganbanner.com.