Tim Scoma is pictured behind the counter of Lifted, 320 N. Main St., shortly before the business opened in 2024. Lifted is hosting a Thanksgiving community meal on Thursday at the UCAN City Mission. P-J file photo

Community members in need this holiday season will be able to stop by UCAN City Mission during the evening of Thanksgiving for a community meal or take-out.

Sponsored by Lifted and hosted by UCAN City Mission, the free community Thanksgiving meal will be available at UCAN, 7 W. First St., from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving, Nov. 27. Owner of Lifted, Tim Scoma, said both he and UCAN members hosting the meal were looking to do it to help those in need.

“The community is in need of help,” Scoma said. “People need to eat. We want to give people a sense of community and family this holiday season, and if I am in a position where I can help people I’m going to do it.”

The meal will be available for take-out, but Scoma added there is space available for people to go and eat in a warm environment as well, adding that he hopes people will come and enjoy it either way they choose.

UCAN’s IT Administrator, Art Dahlgren, who is helping with the event said supplies for the meals are being donated from local businesses, including Wegmans and A Slice of Home.

“We are profoundly gracious and thankful to Lifted for organizing this event, Wegmans and A Slice of Home for donating some supplies, so that we are able to host this Thanksgiving event for the homeless in our community, providing both a warm meal and essential supplies,” Dahlgren said.

The meal is available for any one person or families who are in need of a hot meal on Thanksgiving. Scoma said they also hope to do something similar at Christmas time, and are working on helping those in need in the community in other ways as well, including having hats and socks being given out at their store on 320 North Main Street, and the hope to work with St Luke’s Church and their thrift shop to try and continue to provide for those in need in the community.

Scoma said looking to the future, the hope is that this Thanksgiving meal will become an annual thing.

“I want to do what I can for the community,” Scoma said. “I was born and raised here, this is where my children will be raised. I would like this community to go back to being a community worth living in.”

Most importantly, Scoma said, having empathy and compassion for those less fortunate in the community is something everyone should remember this holiday season. Whether or not someone had means growing up, or has those means now, people should remember what growing up in this community was like, Scoma added, saying that as a community member and taxpayer he wants to make sure people have enough.

“We need to prop each other up in this community,” Scoma said. “People like to talk about Jamestown being bad, but it is not as bad as they say it is. It is what you make it, and I want to help as many people as I can. Around the holidays it can be stressful, but for those who don’t have as much you can’t imagine the stress it has on them. No matter what is happening in the world, we need to try to keep the holiday spirit.”