One Church serves more than 12,000 Thanksgiving meals

PIKEVILLE, Ky. (WYMT) - One Church of Eastern Kentucky gathered at the Appalachian Wireless Arena on Thanksgiving Day to prepare and serve more than 12,000 meals for people in need.

“One Church is an organization of different churches, and different denominations, all coming together with a single purpose of feeding those that need a meal in the Pike County, Letcher County, and Floyd County areas,” said Associate Pastor of Pikeville Freewill Baptist and One Church Member Lee Upchurch.

Whether serving a meal on-site or packaging and delivering the meals, One Church is spreading the word of God by making sure nobody goes hungry.

“The Bible says that faith without works is dead and that’s what we’re doing,” said Upchurch. “We’re putting our faith into action, you know, we’re getting together cooking these meals, packing these meals, delivering these meals.”

More than 1,000 volunteers donated their time over two days to ensure everything was prepared.

“This right here just makes you feel good about people,” said Pikeville Mayor Jimmy Carter. “You know, you hear all the negative things out in the news and the press, but you got hundreds and hundreds of people down here doing and working for the same goal.”

Upchurch added One Church serves more meals each year and this year was no exception. Prestonsburg Mayor Les Stapleton said, despite several disasters throughout the region, nobody will go without a Thanksgiving meal.

“This year we’ve had the flooding, we’ve had some bad times there in Prestonsburg,” said Stapleton. “It’s going to help some people that are not going to have that hot meal, they’re not going to have that delicious meal, they’re going to have it today.”

Upchurch said One Church is already preparing for next year’s Thanksgiving meal and studying the logistics it takes to man the large operation.

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