Mounzer emphasized in addition to providing financial assistance to help folks pay their bills, agencies also help with weatherization, stressing it is particularly important in communities where homes are not recently updated. She added it is important to contact your local Community Action agency if you have any questions about the process or what documents are needed. Mounzer pointed out to access the MEAP program, residents can apply for state emergency relief through the state Department of Health and Human Services. "And looking at the income of our households that we see, how can they afford really paying those high bills?" "We see usually average bills in the wintertime of $400 to $500 a month," Mounzer noted. Wishing you all the happiest of holiday seasons.Shama Mounzer, integration executive director for the Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency, said many of the clients they serve make between 100% and 150% of the poverty level, which equates to a family of three making less than $24,000 a year. I hope you ate a lot and hugged a lot and remembered the first people who held a party in the woods of Plymouth, Massachusetts–the first people who gave thanks for their abundance and their family and friends. Not because of all the work, but because it’s a day we should anticipate and never tire of. And as much as I love it, I’m glad it only comes once a year. I’d give up Christmas and Valentines Day for Thanksgiving. I’m happy I was blessed with another 365 days to make a turkey again. On this day, we see that there is always something to feel grateful for and we gather together to bless our abundance–an abundance of love and food and warmth and time.Įvery year, I’m happy to have made it to another holiday season. Normally, we don’t give these things another thought, but on Thanksgiving we are grateful for it all.
The minutiae of life: the warm kitchen, having enough forks for everyone, white tablecloths, a working stove. You see, it’s the very smallest of things we give thanks for on this day. Thank God for daughters who clear the table and friends who bring wine and sons who move chairs and husbands who sharpen the knives. Thank God there is a day devoted to gratefulness, to giving thanks, to pumpkin pie, to the person you love who got up at 6:00 am to put the turkey in.
It’s the feeling they are after–that warm, fuzzy feeling they get in the late afternoon when they’re full and dozing and the football game is buzzing somewhere and there’s a dog at their feet and laughter is coming from the kitchen and the sun begins to set and another day in a year has come and gone featuring turkey. Take away the food and I believe people would still fly thousands of miles to be at that table. Name another day where a bowl of mashed potatoes can solve all the problems in the world, or where people who normally don’t get together very often find themselves sitting across from one another over a bowl of creamed corn. Name another meal where people will spend $1200 to fly 3000 miles to eat a bird with people they love and even people they roll their eyes at. It brings love, food, blessings and gratefulness and all your people to one long table every single year. I love how everyone stands around trying to weigh in on whether the turkey is ready to come out of the oven and the way my husband sweats when he first cuts into the breast hoping that the turkey doesn’t gobble. I even love the dishes and the stack of clean towels for drying them and the last minute rush to the store for thyme and the never truly knowing if the turkey is done. I love the people who find their way to my table and the whipping of cream and the sounds of ice tinkling in nice glasses. I love the smells and the tastes of the day and the sounds coming from the living room. Thanksgiving is my joy and I love cooking and baking and decorating the house and ordering peppermint bark a month in advance and lighting the fire and serving apple cider with champagne. God willing, I’ll be able to avoid pork fried rice on the fourth Thursday of every November for years to come. A lot of people end up at a Chinese restaurant on Thanksgiving Day when things don’t go well in the kitchen. I’ve never had a disaster in all these decades of cooking turkeys and that’s actually something to be proud of. You do something long enough and you get better at it. I just made my 33rd Thanksgiving dinner and it sure has gotten easier over the years.