St. Matthew's House serves more than 400 meals

The East Naples homeless shelter served up at least 400 turkey dinners Thursday to residents of the 120-bed shelter and to dozens of other walk-ins like Dees.

Dees, 60, is one of the nearly 700 homeless men, women and children the Collier County Hunger and Homeless Coalition counted earlier this year countywide. Homeless advocates say there are probably more. Many of them fight drug and alcohol addictions.

They come through the doors of St. Matthew's House every day -- not just on the holidays -- looking for a bed at the shelter or a meal at the soup kitchen.

But with the help of an army of volunteers, the place outdoes itself on Thanksgiving Day, and Dees is thankful for that.

"I appreciate what they do; they put on quite a feast," said Dees, a thin woman with a tan face and blond hair pulled back in a pony tail. "It's very good."

More than 100 volunteers stood in line, waiting to be handed paper plates heaped with turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, macaroni and green bean casserole to serve to the homeless as they sat down in the shelter's cafeteria.

Others walked around with trays loaded with cold drinks or pieces of apple, blueberry or pumpkin pie.

Volunteers wrote their names on pieces of masking tape and stuck them to their chests. Many brought their children to lend a hand.

Mike Ussmann, the shelter's kitchen manager, said the kitchen roasted 30 turkeys or so and had 10 baked hams at the ready.

It took 10 big aluminum roasting pans to hold the mashed potatoes, six for the green beans and four for the cranberry sauce, he said. Preparations had been going on for days.

"This place has smelled like nonstop turkey," said Maribeth Shanahan, the shelter's development director.

Volunteer Jack Rossi, 81, arrived at 9:30 a.m. Thursday for the final push. He helped slice turkey and prepare the potatoes. Others wrapped napkins around plastic knives and forks.

Dinner started at 2 p.m., and Rossi's job was to serve up the turkey slices. His wife, Paula, took up a station farther down the line, ladling out the gravy.

"Payback time we call it," said Rossi, a Vineyards resident and shelter volunteer for the past 10 years.

Besides Thursday's feast, the shelter handed out 582 turkey dinners to working poor families this past week, Shanahan said.

She said they might have a house, but if they bought the makings for a Thanksgiving dinner, they wouldn't have enough money left to buy medicine for an elderly member of their family or toys for their children at Christmas.

Shanahan said the shelter on Tuesday will start compiling the list of people needing help for Christmas.

Dees, the homeless woman, was just happy to have a place to go for Thanksgiving.

If not for St. Matthew's House, she probably would have spent the day reading a book, probably alone, she said.

When she was done eating, she walked almost unnoticed out of the shelter cafeteria, toward Airport-Pulling Road, resting a while on a curb in the shelter parking lot.

Then she got on her bicycle and rode away.

For more information about ways to help St. Matthew's House or to get help, call 774-0500.