Glen Ellyn church serving community

It took Jim Karas about 10 hours to make his gourmet Thanksgiving stuffing.

It's not a complicated recipe. He just needed to make a great quantity of it.

"It's my mother's recipe," said Karas, an ironworker from Lombard. "But I've adapted it here in mass quantities."

Karas was one of roughly 150 volunteers who spent their Thanksgiving making dinner for hundreds of people Thursday at Parkview Community Church in Glen Ellyn.

For Karas, it's a family affair. His wife, Christine, and daughter, Emily, 18, served pies in the dining room. His two sons, Michael, 16, and Russell, 11, bused tables.

"It's something that God calls us to do," Karas said. "I don't think anybody should be thanked for this. It's something we're supposed to do."

The kitchen crew cooked up roughly 650 pounds of turkey, 20 hams and dozens of containers featuring corn, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and green beans and an assortment of pies.

The church, which has been offering a free Thanksgiving dinner for more than two decades, made enough food for about 400 people.

Volunteers arrived as early as 5:30 a.m. to make it happen. They served in various capacities such as cooks, greeters, hosts, servers, security staff and the cleanup crews.

Visitors included the elderly, homeless and those with a low income, but the dinner is free to anybody who walks through the door.

"We realize that during the holidays some people just don't have anywhere to go and nobody to celebrate with," Pastor Ray Kollbocker said.

For those who didn't want to leave their homes, volunteers delivered a dinner to them. All a person had to do was call the church and request it.

"Sometimes people stereotype these dinners and say that it's just for the homeless," Pastor Brian Chapman said. "But we have an interesting mix of people."

Only about 20 percent of the people who show up at the dinner are homeless, he said. But the church does make great effort to reach out to the homeless. It recently started a homeless ministry that has grown to feature a variety of programs and activities in addition to serving as a place to sleep overnight.