A dozen volunteers stood talking, their hands constantly moving like its second nature. Some were chopping cabbage, other tearing apart bread, peeling potatoes or scraping carrots. The 13 and 16-gallon washtubs were filling up with the ingredients and the turkeys — with an average weight of 22 pounds each — were spread all over the area.

It is typical Wednesday before Thanksgiving at City Welfare Mission where volunteers are preparing for today’s free dinner.

“Campbell Chapel bakes eight of our turkeys for us,” Jeff Cremeans, City Mission pastor, said. “Another couple in the community prepares three for us. Another bakes two and many more are prepared by other local individuals.”

Even with the assistance provided by area residents, most of the cooking is done in the kitchen at City Mission. Leftovers from the dinner are served for the mission’s regular weekday meal, if there is any.

“We don’t have leftovers often,” Cremeans said. “We served almost a thousand people last year and we have requests for 854 meals right now.”

Cremeans’ mother, Mary, has spent the past 46 years helping prepare the vast amounts of food for the dinner.

“We have a lot of help,” she said. “My daughters help and members of the congregation help. One lady buys a turkey, bakes it and brings it in every year.”

The volunteers typically spend four or five hours preparing the food on Wednesday and arrive at 6:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving and stay until 3 p.m. Meals begin being served, delivered or picked up at noon. The meal includes turkey, dressing, coleslaw, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.

For the fourth-straight year, Ironton Rent-To-Own donated 1,000 plates and 1,000 boxes of plastic spoons, forks and knives to the mission for the dinner.