SOUTHWICK – With Thanksgiving right around the corner, it is an obvious time for families to come together and spend the special holiday in the comfort of one’s home.
For Moolicious Farm, they too could say that their family is spending the day with each other as well, except their family will be much larger than most.
The 5th annual Thanksgiving at Moolicious Farm is set to happen yet again on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday November 24. The last four years doing it, owner Joe Deedy has seen his dining area of the restaurant packed with families, old friends from high school, and just people that don’t have anywhere to go or no family in the area, and just simply want a hot meal and good company.
The meals are free and are open to all ages in Southwick and the surrounding Hilltowns.
That is what Thanksgiving Day consists of for Deedy as he sees the whole dining room fill up past 3 p.m.
“It’s more of a community fun event,” said Deedy. “We don’t see any sad faces.”
Moolicious does their best to make sure that there are no sad faces, even if people don’t physically come to the restaurant.
Joe Deedy is preparing for the 5th annual Thanksgiving at Moolicious. (Photo from Joe Deedy)
Besides allowing folks to dine in at Moolicious, Deedy has anywhere from five to ten volunteers who make deliveries to homes. The volunteers begin to deliver the meals at noon and it typically takes around an hour to complete the deliveries. Dining in begins at 1pm.
As of November 15, Deedy says he has about 38 reservations for meals. Looking at the last four years that this has been happening, there has consistently been nearly 200 people who either sit down at the restaurant or get their food delivered.
Every year the hope for Deedy, along with his volunteers and his family, is to make sure no one in the community goes hungry for the holidays.
With the meal that they offer to people, it may seem like Moolicious is rather successful with that hope.
As every person or family gets turkey, they also get stuffing, squash, gravy, mashed potatoes, bread, and don’t forget the dessert which includes cake and pie.
Deedy says that he also gets a good amount of support from local restaurants that help out with the meal. Tucker’s Restaurant is responsible for making the squash, which is so well known, and Roma Restaurant provides the bread.
About 15 or 16 turkeys have been cooked every year and the same amount is expected again this year. People in the community also donate any food they can to lend their helping hand in making the feast.
Explaining that he and his volunteers spend the night before Thanksgiving prepping to make the meal, Deedy says they are all up early in the morning to get the meals ready.
It is a process every year that Deedy plans for in advance and receives a ton of assistance from his borther-in-law, Kelly Magni, and his family.
After all, before Moolicous started the community-based event, Deedy and Magni constantly talked about trying to find a way they could help out a community during the holidays. Once going through several ideas, both men decided being there for the town of Southwick and the surrounding town’s was a no-brainer.
“Our children got old enough where we decided it was time to give back,” said Deedy.
Deedy wanted to make it certain that making a reservation isn’t necessary if someone is in need of a meal. Either way, if an individual or a family wants to have a meal delivered or come in for the dining experience, they can just stop in, reserve a spot, or just call that day by calling 569-1700.
