One of the most important elements of the holiday season is the spirit of giving. The Fayetteville community is home to many generous organizations and individuals who dedicate their time and energy towards helping others. 

Operation Compassion is an event hosted by Epicenter Church annually to provide free Thanksgiving dinners to members of the community. The event is about 10 years old now and has grown from an initiative aimed at feeding a few hundred people to an effort that requires several hundred volunteers and feeds roughly 5,000 people.

“We cook around 400 turkeys, and this year we’re going to actually cook 400 turkeys, and we’re going to give away another several hundred uncooked turkeys in a lottery registration system. So people who register, first come first serve, can come and pick up a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner as well,” explained Mark Knight, lead pastor of Epicenter Church in Fayetteville, NC. 

Before diving into ministry full time, Knight spent over 15 years in the business world, building and running a highly successful company. Mark Knight has been pastor of Epicenter Church for 19 years, helping the church to grow to a congregation of over 2,000.

Feeding a crowd of 5,000 is no small task. However, with a decade of experience under their belt, Epicenter Church knows how to get the job done.

“We cook on Monday, and then we cook on Tuesday, and we have a business here in town that has some smokers, and they cook about 80 or so to 100 and then we cook the rest on 15 grills here, like pig cooker grills, and each one holds about 15...And we keep a big refrigeration 18 wheeler here to keep everything that needs to be cold kept cold. It’s a pretty major undertaking. We’ve done it for so long now that we’ve kind of got it down to a science,” shared Knight. 

The event is on the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. Last year they fed people at 19 different locations. Pastor Knight shared that the locations for this year have not all been announced yet. Some locations will be the same as previous years and they are also working on adding some new locations. Once all sites have been confirmed they’ll advertise them to the community. There are no restrictions as to who can come out and receive a meal. 

“We just want to be a blessing. We do go to some harder hit areas, areas that we feel like the need would be greater, but we also set up in places that anybody can come up to the tent, grab a meal or two, or a meal for each one of their family members, take it home to eat. And we do set up some locations with places where they can eat as well. So it doesn’t matter to us who comes, we just want to be a blessing to our community,” explained Knight.

In addition to the turkey, community members can expect traditional Thanksgiving sides such as rolls, green beans, stuffing and more. 

“Over the years, we have received letters from people. We’ve received encouragement from people to continue to do it. We’ve received letters from people who, maybe, several years ago, were down and out on their luck, and they came and were fed, and it blessed them in such a way that after they got back on their feet, they became either volunteers or some have even given money towards the event. We know it's a great success, because just the night of that event, we have people staged at these locations that just kind of spend time with anybody who shows up, just kind of talking about life and if there's anything we can do to pray for them or anything we can do to help them. It’s been well received from the community. The community has embraced it,” shared Knight. While this day of service is one of the biggest that the church does throughout the year, their passion for serving is displayed through consistent acts of giving to the community. 

“It’s just really an extension of things that we already do. We do two Hope Dinners a month here at the church and we have a food pantry that feeds two times a week as well. It’s just kind of an extension of who we are, and so people kind of know what to expect and that we’re here to help in any way. And so it’s been well received by everyone in the community,” added Knight.

To learn more about Epicenter Church visit their website https://epicenter.churchcenter.com/.