Photo by Chris Sykes Mike Spence, center, and his fellow volunteers, from left center, Elana Banks and Sherlita McCann, and their friend, center right, dish out food to Clarence Jackson, left, and his friend on Thursday, Nov. 24, at the free Thanksgiving dinner they served in the Orange High School cafeteria for anyone in the city of Orange Township community who wanted to partake of it.
Mike Spence, center, and his fellow volunteers, from left center, Elana Banks and Sherlita McCann, and their friend, center right, dish out food to Clarence Jackson, left, and his friend on Thursday, Nov. 24, at the free Thanksgiving dinner they served in the Orange High School cafeteria for anyone in the city of Orange Township community who wanted to partake of it.
ORANGE, NJ — Mike Spence, of the Telling Real Inspiring Beliefs Everyday group, was a presenter on Saturday, Nov. 19, at the Orange public schools’ seventh annual Teen Summit at Lincoln Avenue Elementary School. At the event Spence invited students and their parents to share Thanksgiving dinner at Orange High School on Thursday, Nov. 24, at the same time the Orange Fire Department held its own Thanksgiving Community Dinner one block away at the Chief Marty DeMarzo Fire Headquarters.
On Thursday, Nov. 24, Spence and his friends — Sherlita McCann of the Speak Hope Over Every Situation nonprofit organization, Elana Banks of the Wish Bag foundation, Newark barber Shawn McNeil and others — were at the Orange High School cafeteria to serve up a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings to all who came.
“Today, we had a mission to feed 40 families — and to just feed them hope and it’s not just food — to give them a good time during this holiday season, because you know you don’t know what anybody is going through,” Spence said Wednesday, Nov. 24. “It’s just to uplift the city of Orange, with all the things that are going on. We just wanted to give a new tone, a new feeling, a new sight for the kids and everybody around. We just wanted to provide some hope during this holiday season.”
According to Banks, Spence was referring to all who came to do something good for the Orange community.
“‘We’ is Elana, Sherlita, Mike, everybody,” Banks said, adding that “everybody here that came to volunteer. Everybody in the neighborhood; we’re all one. So we just wanted to come together and just help everybody.”
McCann is a 2009 Orange High School graduate and, while that was just seven short years ago, in that time, Orange seems to have taken a turn for the worse, she said.
McCann said it’s not too late, however, to change the city’s trajectory, which is why the group joined forces for the Orange community on Thanksgiving Day.
“We all each individually do things that are separate, but today, what you see now is just three leaders coming together for a great cause,” said McCann on Wednesday, Nov. 24. “Specifically, we didn’t put a brand name on the flier for this event, because we didn’t want it to look like an organization was hosting this. We’re just citizens and residents of Orange. Some of us are alumni. I’m an alumna from Orange High School and here I am in here, where I used to go to school, just really giving back to the community and just trying to stop all violence.”
McCann described herself and those involved with organizing the community dinner as “agents of change.”
“We’ve always been that,” she said. “We always going to be that.”
McNeil hails from Newark, but said he volunteered in Orange on Thanksgiving Day because “it’s all about giving back” to the community. The barber donated free haircuts to anyone who came to Orange High School on Thursday, Nov. 24.
“It’s about giving back to the community and this is my seventh haircut, so I’m only beginning and I ain’t doing too bad,” McNeil said Thursday, Nov. 24. “If someone is less fortunate, it’s only right that, if you got something and you got blessed, that you bless somebody else. We’re all the same — Newark, Orange, Irvington, East Orange — it’s all the same thing. We’re all the same community. We’re all just trying to make it out.”
And that’s what Clarence Jackson and a couple of his friends did.
“I enjoyed it; I was surprised because I didn’t know they were going to have it,” Jackson said Thursday, Nov. 24. “I just happened to run into somebody and they gave me a flier and I came and checked it out. It was nice. Everything was good, especially the music. I’m mad because I didn’t get my hair cut.”
Jackson also stopped by the nearby Orange Fire Department Thanksgiving Community Dinner before attending the event at the high school.
“Basically, what they didn’t have here, they had up there,” Jackson said. “So basically, it worked out. I got something to take home from the fire station, then I got to sit down at the high school and enjoy the meal. Now, I’m headed home to watch the games.”
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