HOSPICE OF HEALTH FIRST mobilizes a large group of volunteers each Thanksgiving to visit patients bearing hot turkey-and-stuffing dinners. “I've been waiting all year to be able to go around and pass out these meals myself,” said one volunteer, who last year welcomed just such a visit.

Each Thanksgiving, a small army of Hospice of Health First volunteers loads hot holiday meals into their trunks and fan out around Brevard County, visiting hospice patients like Leona Hammer.

“If I didn’t get this I’d probably eat a bowl of cold cereal. It’s a great help to me, and a great help to my family not to have to worry about me,” she said.

Hospice Volunteer Tricia Moore said this time last year she was the recipient of such meals. Her husband Todd had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and “a very wise oncologist said it's time for a hospice.”

He was under hospice care for three months.

“We were just so excited when [Hospice of Health First] asked, ‘Would you like a Thanksgiving meal?’ Because there are times in your life that going to the store and cooking are not a priority,” she said.

She’s happy to pay this blessing forward.

“So I've been waiting all year to be able to go around and pass out these meals myself to people and bring them that same kind of comfort this time of year.”