Long lines and happy faces filled the sidewalk on 39th Ave s.w. leading up to Eastridge Christian Assembly church on the morning of Nov. 20.

Several hundred people were waiting in line for a free turkey and bag full of Thanksgiving essentials including stuffing, cranberry, gravy and potato mix, courtesy of the church and funded by donations from their members.

“For our family, we understand right now with the way the economy is, families have had to make huge sacrifices and have suffered losses and this is just our way to be able to support those families and take care of them and spread the love of Jesus,” said church member John Coovert.

Lead pastor Steve Jamison said the lines this year were longer than they have seen in the eight years the church has given away turkeys, both at their West Seattle location and their church in Issaquah (they plan to give away 1000 turkeys and 1000 bags of groceries at each church).

“It’s more (people this year), we had advertised to people that we will open at 9 a.m. and we had a few hundred people here at 6:15 (a.m.),” Jamison said. “The needs are just greater, I think it’s obvious that the economic impact is, you know, you hear so much about the nine percent unemployment and I think we are just seeing the impact of that visually with the people that are here.”

“Our goal is, between the 2000 turkeys and the bags of groceries, we would like to think that maybe we are gathering somewhere between eight thousand to ten thousand people for Thanksgiving and we are just trying, in a small way, to say ‘Your community cares about you,’” Jamison said.

“There are a lot of great churches that are doing a lot of great things, we are just one small piece of that,” Jamison said. “We recognize that we don’t have the ability to meet the larger needs of all these people but we do feel like we want to send them a signal that people do care about where they are at and we want to help them even in a small way.”

“It may be that the encouragement may be more valuable than the turkey and the bag of groceries,” he added.

As Veronica Robinson and her daughter Sekela Roberts walked away from the church with a plump turkey and a bag bulging with future side dishes, Veronica’s eyes began to tear up.

“I just want to cry, this is amazing,” Robinson said. “It’s just proof that God is alive and he is real. This has made my Thanksgiving.”

Pastor Jamison said they would be there until all the turkeys were gone, and at 10 a.m. he had just ordered an additional 300 be sent over to cover the demand.