The turkeys are about to be thawed and the pumpkin pies are awaiting slicing for the annual Butler Thanksgiving Community Dinner. Only one thing is lacking: volunteers.

Kelly Zaccari, event coordinator, said those in need, unable to cook, or simply alone for Thanksgiving can enjoy a free feast from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday at First United Methodist Church, 200 E. North St., Butler.

Meals also will be delivered and available for pickup at the church.

She expects to prepare and serve, pack or deliver about 1,200 meals this year that will consist of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green beans, roll, cranberry sauce and dessert.

However, Zaccari said she is lacking in volunteers this year in every department, from dishwashers to drivers.

Those who volunteer can help out with any number of tasks for an hour to all day, beginning Tuesday.

On Thanksgiving, she tries to wrap up the event by 2 p.m. so volunteers can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with their families.

Zaccari said she needs 20 drivers, seven volunteers in the kitchen for two consecutive days, people out front, people to pack hot and cold packs, and people to wash dishes.

She said the process of preparing the Thanksgiving meals — which are prepared at St. Michael the Archangel Roman Catholic Church on Center Avenue and transported to First U.M. — starts on Tuesday, when thawed turkeys are washed and seasoned and 80 electric roasters are pulled out of storage and washed.

At about 6 a.m. Wednesday, a few volunteers will place the birds in the roasters and get them cooking. The hall at First U.M. is prepared later in the day.

“Then when the turkeys are done at noon or 1 p.m., people come in and debone them,” Zaccari said. The juicy meat is then packed up and stored in a walk-in cooler.

Also on Wednesday, volunteers pack the cold pack containers with pumpkin pie, a roll and cranberry sauce.

“That takes about 20 to 30 people to get all those together,” Zaccari said.

Kitchen volunteers open cans of green beans while others open boxes of stuffing mix and pour the dry contents into huge metal pans.

“They’ll be stored so the guy can just pull them out the next day and make them,” Zaccari said.

On Thursday, the turkey is warmed up in the oven, then placed into hot boxes for transport to First U.M., the homemade gravy is made in a special piece of industrial kitchen equipment at St. Michael’s, and the hot packs are filled with the meal’s warm items.

“As soon as the food starts warming up, we’ll start packing the to-go orders,” Zaccari said.

Delivery volunteers then pack up the meals and drive them to Butler’s senior high-rise apartment buildings, all Butler Meals on Wheels clients, some smaller nursing homes, and to individual homes where the resident is unable to cook a turkey dinner or is alone on Thanksgiving.

The Herculean task of preparing the Thanksgiving dinner for those in Butler who need it the most takes many hands, and Zaccari said all volunteer help will be welcomed.

To offer an hour or two — or more — to help feed those in Butler who are struggling, visit tinyurl.com/ThanksgivingMealHelp.

Zaccari said the most inspiring aspect of planning the Thanksgiving meal is providing a tasty holiday meal to a neighbor who otherwise would not have gotten one, or who wouldn’t have seen a friendly face on the holiday.

Equally heartwarming, Zaccari said, is the true collaboration among the Butler community as Thanksgiving approaches.

She said American Legion Post 778 in Lyndora donated 20 turkeys. The French and Belgian Club donated turkeys too, as did Zaccari's pickleball club.

The five Roman Catholic churches in the All Saints Parish, St. Paul, St. Peter, St. Michael, St. Andrew and St. Conrad, collect each nonperishable side dish used in the dinner in the months leading up to the dinner, and friends and family of Zaccari’s donate many turkeys.

Monetary donations from parishioners at the five churches and the public at large are used to buy 1,500 to-go containers and other incidentals needed for the meal.

Funds not used go to the nightly community dinners provided to the needy Monday through Friday at five churches in Butler.

The donated birds are dropped off at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church and stored in the freezer there until it fills up, and Zaccari moves them to the larger freezer at Saint Michael.

Zaccari also buys turkeys with money donated to the parish for that purpose, buy she said many stores limit the number of turkeys that can be purchased at a time.

While she buys 100 pumpkin pies for the meal, Zaccari said other desserts are donated by Pennie’s Bake Shop & Espresso Bar in Butler, as well as Panera at Butler Crossing.

She uses the pumpkin pies for the delivered meals, and those who eat their dinner at the church can pick from the delicious donated desserts.

To move hot items from St. Michael’s to First U.M., special hot boxes are donated by Firehouse Subs.

Any leftover meals are donated to a very special demographic in Butler who are working on Thanksgiving.

“If we overcook, we want to feed our first responders,” Zaccari said.

She said those who wear the uniform at Butler Bureau of Fire, Butler Ambulance and the Butler Bureau of Police receive the tasty meals as a thank you for sacrificing their holidays — and, at times, their safety — for the good of the Butler community.

“This is a true community effort,” Zaccari said.

Zaccari got started with the Butler Thanksgiving Community Dinner about 13 years ago, when Mason Menell asked her to volunteer.

“The woman who organized it, Lori Parkinson, was wonderful and I saw she needed help, so I started helping her,” she said.

Zaccari started off as a driver delivering meals.

“The people who received the meals were so appreciative,” she recalled. “Some of them had nobody in their family.”

Today, Menell, Loren Gold, and Bill and Joyce Knass, are Zaccari’s core helpers for the dinner.

Parkinson said the meal began at the Cub’s Hall at least 25 years ago. She started as a volunteer in 2005, then moved to coordinator.

She said she and her husband, Nevin, who still coordinates drivers for the meal, always thought the interaction between drivers and those receiving the food is just as important as the meal itself.

“We always tried to make sure the last delivery was someone who had only ordered one meal because maybe we are the only person they saw that day,” Parkinson said. “We wanted to give them a little fellowship as well.”

She recalled one year when a single mother whose toddler spent Thanksgiving with her ex-husband volunteered to help with the meal because she had no family in the area and would have been alone on the holiday.

“She needed something to do,” Parkinson said. “It’s not just for the people who need the meal. It also benefits the people who volunteer.”

She said Nevin stepped in when a driver coordinator was needed because he has the appropriate software from his job as a contractor to efficiently get the meals out while they are still hot.

Although her days have been busy as of late, Zaccari said she coordinates the Butler Thanksgiving Community Meal for one main reason.

“I feel like everyone should have something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day,” she said.