In this season of thanksgiving, the Palmerton community is blessed with many giving hearts to those in need.

Thanks to the community's donations and many helping hands, food was distributed to families last Friday at St. John's Lutheran Church in Palmerton, to ensure they would have a Thanksgiving meal.The Christian Action Council of Palmerton Area Churches, a ministry of 15 Palmerton Area churches, helps feed 180 families all year long.They couldn't do it without the generosity of volunteers and the community. During the holidays, they make a special effort to provide complete fixings for holiday meals.CACPAC typically ordered turkeys from Palmerton's Country Harvest Family Market. The past few years, the owners of Country Harvest, Richard and Darlene Nothstein and the Chris Anthony family, have donated them.This year they donated more than 200 turkeys and chickens in memory of Charlie Silliman, the CACPAC coordinator for 15 years before he became ill. Silliman passed away in July."He was a special guy and we thought it was only fitting that we honor and remember him in some way," Richard Nothstein said.He quickly added, "We have a lot of great people in our community who give so much. All the folks at the pantry are heroes."Chickens are given to families of two people or less. Turkeys are given to families with more than two.For the past few years, Nothstein has been sitting on the board of Shepherd House Inc. of Lehighton, a food pantry system serving Carbon County's nine food pantries, including CACPAC, located at St. John's Lutheran Church.Shepherd House distributes emergency food supplies to the needy in Carbon County.Shepherd House has been told that the unemployment and poverty levels of the county are below the guidelines, so funding has been drastically cut. So Nothstein sees and understands the needs of the community.As do Ken Kaiser and Barb Brader, co-chairs of CACPAC."We have the most awesome community, and our volunteers are the best. We couldn't feed our clients without the support of everyone and our local churches and businesses. The Country Harvest family is amazing. They sell us groceries at cost and they donate so much," Brader said.On Friday, they distributed food to 223 families for a total of 643 people: 336 adults, 193 children and 114 elderly.And thanks to the Aquashicola Volunteer Fire Company, the clients of CACPAC received another special treat: Johnsonville sausage patties.Johnsonville Sausage LLC held a national online voting campaign for the best volunteer fire departments across the nation.Aquashicola received over 5,600 votes and placed somewhere between sixth and ninth in the voting. It received $1,000 in training materials and Johnsonville sausages."The Johnsonville products was for us to use as a fundraiser, but because the community showed such a strong support of us in their voting, we decided to donate the sausage to CACPAC," says Pete Beblavy, Aquashicola's assistant fire chief.CACPAC wants everyone to know how grateful they are for everyone's generosity. To donate, contact 610-377-4768.