Wesley Chapel Rotary's 'Turkey Gobble' Feeds Hundreds Again

By Gary Nager

The Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel Noon is proud to have again served more than 500 “Turkey Day” meals with all of the trimmings at two locations on Thanksgiving morning, Nov 26 — including 450 meals at Atonement Lutheran Church on SR 54 in Wesley Chapel — during the club’s sixth annual “Turkey Gobble.”

The 100-member WC Noon Rotary, which meets Wednesdays at noon at Stage Left on SR 54 in Lutz, has been feeding area homeless and other needy individuals & families at the church (which also is the location of the free Helping Hands Food Pantry for locals in need) every year since 2010. At this year’s “Gobble,” more than 50 volunteers from the WC Rotary (including club members and their family & friends) fed more than 450 families at Atonement Lutheran, while the WC Rotary’s “satellite” club in Land O’Lakes served another 50 meals at Keystone Community Church on S.R. 54 in Lutz, the third year in a row that the Rotary Club has “Gobbled” at Keystone.

“We also donated 150 ‘snack packs’ for those families to take with them,” said Dineen Pashoukos Wasylik, the Rotary Club’s Turkey Gobble organizer this year for the third consecutive year. She also thanked a contingent of volunteers from Boy Scout Troop 149, based in Lutz. “And, some members of our club again went into the woods to take meals to the homeless camp (located off S.R. 54).”

Dineen also thanked other members of the community, who pitched in by delivering meals to housebound people in need. “I am so thankful for the volunteers who spent time on a holiday to put the ‘giving’ in Thanksgiving,” she said.

I am always so proud to say that I’m a member of the Wesley Chapel Rotary Club. If you want to be part of an organization that truly believes in the Rotary International motto of “Service Above Self,” one that always gives back to its local, regional and even international communities, visit WCRotary.org. First-time visitors always receive lunch for free at our regular Wed. meetings at Stage Left and you can even sign in as my guest.