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On the day before Thanksgiving every year, the pastoral care coordinator from Immaculate Conception parish in Glenville creates an assembly line in her kitchen. Her sons and parents methodically plate turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, butternut squash, gravy, green vegetables and cranberry and apple sauces she's spent hours cooking.

It's a meal not for her family, but for parishioners who can't leave their homes and don't have family nearby. That special Thanksgiving meal has become a tradition for Rachel Winters; her teenage sons, Luke and Colin; her parents, parishioners Joan and Tom Kudlacik; and her husband, Frank, who helps make deliveries to more than a dozen homebound parishioners on Wednesday night.

It all started when Mrs. Winters became pastoral care coordinator eight years ago. At that time, Immaculate Conception parish picked up food from a local restaurant and made Thanksgiving deliveries to the homebound.

It needs something
But "there just wasn't enough variety on the plate; there wasn't a lot of color," Mrs. Winters remarked. "I decided to add some life to the plate.

"The people didn't like it because they didn't get dark meat," she added with a laugh.

Luckily, Mrs. Winters loves to cook, and Mr. Kudlacik grows his own potatoes and butternut squash. Providing the meal became an annual ritual.

Mrs. Winters purchases ingredients and some items, including rolls and pies of recipients' choosing, which come from a local bakery. She turns down contributions from the parish.

Gravy and sauces go in separate containers; meat and side dishes, on heavy-duty paper plates covered in foil. Everyone gets a hand-decorated brown paper bag filled with a card, Thanksgiving napkins and utensils.

"I've got it all planned," she said. "It's down to a science now. I just love the elderly and I've had a love for them since I can remember. I want to share what I have with other people.

"It makes a difference," she continued. "They realize they're still special and there's people out there that care about them. We're spreading God's love to them and letting them know they're not forgotten."

Three-hour tour
It takes almost three hours to make all the deliveries in a 30-mile radius of her home. Colin and Luke - and sometimes their friends - tag along on the home visits, where residents catch up on the boys' lives.

Luke is now a college freshman; Colin, a high-school sophomore. The parishioners have watched the teens grow up.

"We've been doing it since I was in the fourth grade," Colin said. "My mom just kinda told me we were gonna deliver meals for the people she visits. Every year since, it's been a really nice thing."

The meal recipients ask Colin about school, Boy Scouts, skiing and especially his mountain bike races: "They just wonder what it's like," he said. "Their first reaction is always, 'That sounds really dangerous.'"

He says talking to the homebound gives him "an outlook on what life looked like for them back in the day - [the] troubling times of the '30s and '40s. Their faith really goes along way, and it helps reinforce mine."

Colin finds common ground with the elderly by talking about constants like nature: "It's familiarity in these modern times," he said. "Birds have always been birds, and they always will be."

No end in sight
The Winters crew heeds parishioners' diets: For diabetics, they omit items like cranberry sauce or buy special versions.

Colin intends to keep helping his family well into the future and doesn't care that it's not something many other families do.

"You don't need people being overwhelmed with people trying to help them," he reasoned. "It's one less meal they have to cook. I get a sense of joy out of it. It's a sense of pride in what I've done."

On Thanksgiving Day, the Winters family invites and chauffeurs a few homebound but ambulatory parishioners to their own meal.

"It's such a great thing for the kids," Mrs. Winters said. "All of us love it, because it makes you feel good. Parishioners are amazed that we do [all of this]. They probably think I'm crazy."

Much to do
A Burnt Hills native, Mrs. Winters met her husband while pursuing her self-created elderly recreation major at SUNY-Plattsburgh. As pastoral care coordinator, she oversees about 25 parish volunteers and visits parishioners in hospitals, nursing homes and private homes.

She also makes referrals, drives people to appointments and does shopping for them. Previously, she worked as a recreation director at nursing homes.

She's always been passionate about helping the elderly: Throughout her childhood, she delivered firewood to an elderly neighbor and had daily chats.

"They have so much to offer," she said. "They're interesting people, and they have so many experiences to share. Even those people [who are not very cheery], when they're suffering in their last days, I learn something from them."

She said the parishioners she serves now are folded into her family's life. When a meal recipient passes away, everyone in the family mourns.[[In-content Ad]]

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