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Updated 11/16/2008 05:42 PM

Troy church holds early Thanksgiving dinner

By: Dave Detling

Troy church holds early Thanksgiving dinner
TROY, N.Y. -- "I’ll say about 300," guessed Barbara Bull.


The Troy resident was amazed at how many people packed Grace Baptist Church in Troy.

Close to 230 showed up for their early Thanksgiving dinner.

"I think it's great because you don't see people get together like this very often, you know. But this is Thanksgiving and this is the way it should be," said Bull.

For more than 20 years Pastor John Koletas and his family have been hosting the meal.

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Complete with all the fixings, it was a chance for people to celebrate life and give thanks to those who care.


"I think people love when somebody cares about them, when somebody knows that somebody's there to help them," said the pastor's daughter Aliz Koletas.

"It's just really about reaching out to your fellow neighbor, to mankind and doing your part," said the pastor.

For years Grace Baptist has always helped people in need, but this year the church really reached out to the community.

"Well we broke our record attendance today," said the pastor.

And because of recording breaking numbers, Pastor John will be getting a new look. We learned he bet his beard on attendance.

"They're shaving it off because they invited their friends. They invited their family. They invited the people know to come to this Thanksgiving dinner and let people know, hey, in Troy you have a friend. You have church that cares about you," said Aliz Koletas.

So while the pastor will soon look a little trimmer, it's friendly bet that has his church giving back in a time of need.