Ottawa Mission expecting to serve 5,000 to 6,000 Thanksgiving meals

The Ottawa Mission in downtown Ottawa.

OTTAWA -

The Ottawa Mission is expecting to serve 5,000 to 6,000 turkey meals by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.

A takeout Thanksgiving meal will be offered at the shelter on Monday, while meals have been delivered through the Ottawa Mission's Food Truck program all week.

"People always think of it as just the Thanksgiving Monday meal, but they have to realize Chef Rick (Chef Rick Allen-Watson) and his team start preparing for this two weeks in advance – a huge effort to serve that many meals," said Ottawa Mission executive director Peter Tilley in an interview on Newstalk 580 CFRA.

"We're going to serve about five to six-thousand meals, Thanksgiving dinners by the time we wrap up late Monday afternoon."

Tilley says the Ottawa Mission will offer a takeout Thanksgiving meal on Monday due to COVID-19 restrictions, similar to other holiday meals during the pandemic.

The Ottawa Mission expects to serve 4,000 lbs of Turkey, 2,500 lbs of mashed potato, 1,000 lbs of glazed fresh carrots and 5,000 desserts.

"It takes quite an effort to get ready. That starts with two weeks of deboning turkeys," said Tilley, noting the public responded "very well" with turkey donations for the Thanksgiving meal.

"We cook them, we debone them, we prepare them, we freeze them and then on the day of beginning at about 4:30-5 a.m. we begin to steam and heat up the turkey so it's ready."

This week, the Ottawa Senators, FreshCo, Keller Williams, and Dr. Peter Brownrigg and the team were among the organizations and businesses that donated turkeys to the Ottawa Mission.

Tilley tells Newstalk 580 CFRA's Andrew Pinsent that financial donations this weekend will help the Ottawa Mission moving forward.

"If anybody wanted to help they can just go to our website ottawamission.com, make a donation and certainly we can use that," said Tilley.

"Our hunger challenges for our sector don't end on Thanksgiving or Christmas when we do these holiday meals, so every bit helps.  Whether a financial donation or a food donation year round, certainly we can use that support."