Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
Members and volunteers from the Charles E. Swisher Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1924 will be preparing and boxing up Christmas meals for folks in need, just as they did on Thanksgiving this year. Village News/Courtesy photo
The free Christmas meals are available for delivery, must RSVP by Dec. 21, or pickup as supplies last at VFW Post 1924 in Fallbrook. Village News/Courtesy photo
On Thanksgiving, VFW Post 1924 in Fallbrook distributed more than 700 free meals and they expect to give out more than 800 on Christmas day. Village News/Courtesy photo
Chris Ingraham, Post Commander of the Charles E. Swisher Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1924, is anticipating a big Christmas day for the post, its members and volunteers.
"Even though we are basically shut down, we provide Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners to the community," Ingraham said. "We normally only do about 250 to 300 meals for Thanksgiving. We did 731 meals and they were all delivered and take out.
"With this current COVID stay a home order, we think we will have even more than we had for Thanksgiving because there are actually people that aren't gonna go anywhere. We're expecting about 800 meals to be either takeout or delivered for Christmas."
The free meals, all packaged up and ready to take home or be delivered to your doorstep are intended for folks struggling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown orders.
"This is one of our ways of supporting the community during the holidays," Ingraham said. "We count on donations. Members and the Vista Elks Club donated a thousand dollars. We're one of very few organizations in the North County actually even doing it. This past Thanksgiving, we were one of four in all of North County to actually provide a Thanksgiving dinner. I haven't seen the numbers on Christmas yet of who's doing it, but I'm assuming if Thanksgiving was that small with the current COVID rules, I'm thinking maybe Christmas isn't going to be that much different."
With the high number of meals they expect to provide on Friday, they are still accepting donations.
"If anybody wants to give donations, especially right now, we're not going to turn them away," Ingraham said. "Once they found out what happened on Thanksgiving, people have been really generous in donating food and money and everything."
He said they could always use more donations, of course.
For anyone that needs a Christmas day meal, deliveries must be reserved by Sunday, Dec. 21 and that can be done by emailing the VFW at [email protected] or by calling 760-728-8784.
Meals will be delivered by VFW members and volunteers between 9 and 11 a.m. Christmas day and pickups can be made from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. or until there are no more meals available.
For more information, visit fallbrookvfw.org.
Jeff Pack can be reached by email at [email protected].
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