On the Friday before Christmas, several Brother Knights, along with a couple of additional members of St. Luke the Evangelist Parish, gathered at the local Market Basket to assemble 20 Christmas dinners for the St. Luke the Evangelist Food Pantry. Each volunteer was given one item from the shopping list and sent out into the store to grab 20 of that item from the shelves. Arrangements were made with the store in advance to have turkeys, hams, and pies set aside to ensure that there would be enough of each of these items. Once everyone reconvened at the front of the store we paid for the items and split them across 20 boxes to make the individual dinners. When this was done, those volunteers who had enough room in their vehicle drove the boxes to the food pantry, where they were dropped off to be distributed by the volunteers there over the following weekend. Along with the food items, arrangements were also made with the store to have boxes set aside for us to use that morning, and they opened a separate register to handle our order to minimize the impact on the other customers.

This program aims to provide the food pantry with a much needed boost in supplies at a time of year when there is especially high demand for their services, and to help them provide a Christmas dinner to more families in need in the area. The council also completes these shopping trips before Easter and Thanksgiving for the same reason, and purchases either complete dinners or a larger quantity of a smaller number of items, depending on the needs of the pantry at that time. The council typically funds this program through other charitable activities during the year, usually by running a dinner at the Parish Center.