raham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette Volunteers, including school children, worked to prepare over 1,000 tiny easter baskets for the upcoming Easter Sunday dinner. More then 300 volunteers work to prepare, serve, and deliver more than 1,000 holiday meals to elders in the community. In the background are a few of the bags that will be used for holiday dinner home deliveries.

HANCOCK – Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly (LBFE) has been busy this week preparing for about 1,050 Easter dinners to be served across nine sites on Sunday at nine separate sites across the Copper Country.

“We serve elders 60 years and older who are alone or have nobody to share Easter dinner with,” Gail Ross, LBRE elder services coordinator said.

“We do dine-in sites at nine locations, including our Marquette County office, and we have them in Houghton, Hancock, Calumet, South Range, L’Anse –”

While LBFE delivers meals to seniors, Ross said there is an emphasis on dine-in sites.

“There’s a lot of folks that we stress the dine-in sites for the companionship and friendship to share with each other, and to have a sit-down dinner,” she said. “It’s a festive environment, everybody’s happy, everybody’s happy for spring on top of the dinner.”

Ross said at each of the sites, some sort of entertainment is provided, which she describes as “something jovial, something fun for the elderly and the volunteers to listen to.”

That is not to say LBFE has eliminated delivering holiday dinners.

“If you are unable to get out, you’re in a bed maybe, or confined to home, we will deliver you a dinner,” Ross said, “and we will make sure that — our philosophy, our standard — was for delivering dinners to the home bound, and if there’s a caregiver that lives them and takes care of them, we’re happy to bring two dinners.”

The Salvation Army in Hancock is an all delivery site, Ross said, from where they send out about 150 meals.

“They have it set up where when the dinner is ready, and it’s hot, we bag it in a very festive bag. It’s a super festive, happy meal,” she said. “We have desserts in it, and the dinner, which is ham, red potatoes, sweet potatoes, veggies, it’s a really nice dinner and actually it’s for about two meals.”

The dinners contain enough food for two meals, said Ross, because elders sometimes eat smaller portions at one sitting. Each delivery bag is a joy to open.

“There’s a mini Easter bag in there, a little Easter basket, or bonnet, if you will, so it’s really nice,” said Ross.

Doing the holiday dinners three times a year requires help from all sectors of the community. Food for meals comes from several sources, Ross said. LBFE partners with Copper Shores’ Meals on Wheels for the main course. Local businesses are big contributors.

“We have a community that steps up and provides us with a big piece of the donated parts of the dinner.”

Once food is procured, there are volunteers who cook the meals, volunteers who serve them at the dine-in sites, while others are servers and others who deliver them. Volunteers wash dishes while others clean up the dine-in sites afterward. There are volunteer delivery drivers, drivers who pick elders up and drive them to dine-in sites, as well as volunteers who assemble little Easter baskets and other goodies.

Ross said there are more than 300 volunteers across all nine sites, but more are always welcome, particularly at the dine-in sites in the Calumet area. Across all sites, said Ross, more drivers are always needed.