Dec 25, 2025 3 min read

Whether it was delivered to them by a driver in Dilliner or served up in person in Waynesburg, Greene County residents got an extra helping of Christmas cheer from the hot meals served up in what has become an annual tradition.

The Fraternal Order of Eagles 598 hosted its annual Christmas dinner. Graysville resident Chuck Wolfe launched the dinner in 2018 with the help of his wife, family of nine and a group of volunteers.

Knowing some members of the lodge didn’t have family in the area, he wanted to make sure they’d have somewhere to go for Christmas. With his own family growing up and launching their own meals, he also saw a way to re-create the communal dinners he remembered going to with his family as a child at St. Ann Catholic Church.

That first year, he expected a crowd of around 20 to 30. Instead, he got hundreds.

“We had people lined up around the block, which shocked us,” he said.

While the sit-down meal still goes on, the vast majority of the meals now get delivered. What started as a 5-mile radius has grown to encompass the entire county.

Almost 1,500 meals were scheduled to be delivered Thursday morning, and requests were still coming in. They’re prepared for up to 2,500 meals, Wolfe said.

In person or delivered, diners were treated to a Christmas feast — ham, turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and a roll, topped off with a pudding cup and a homemade cookie.

Those meals go to people in need, and also those busy working to make sure everyone else’s holiday goes smoothly — state police, emergency room staff and nursing home workers.

As the dinner has grown, an army of dozens of volunteers has stepped up to fill the need.

This year’s group was three times larger than usual, Wolfe said. By the scheduled start time of 10 a.m., deliveries were already well on their way to grateful homes in Bobtown and Mount Morris. The homes in West Greene would get their meals from Wolfe himself.

“This community comes together in a time of need, and the more they see that this dinner does, and how many people are truly in need, they just come,” Wolfe said amid a bustling Eagles lodge Thursday morning. “They want to help. They want to be part of it. They want to make sure nobody goes without. We’ve had volunteers come as far as Allegheny County that read about this and came down to help out.”

Steve Eddy of Waynesburg has been volunteering since nearly the beginning. He does a bit of everything, he said, from cooking the meals to picking up the ingredients.

“It’s just helping people that need it,” he said.