Meet The Local Woman Who Helps Feed Those In Need Every Thanksgiving

Lois Wheeler has dedicated her entire life to helping people and specifically feeding those who need it.

Since 1980, Wheeler, an ordained minister, has been putting on Thanksgiving dinners for those who are in need of a warm meal and some fellowship. For the past 20 years, Wheeler has conducted her annual Thanksgiving dinner at the Masonic Lodge in Fairless Hills.

This Thanksgiving was no different.

Dozens of people gathered Thanksgiving afternoon to enjoy the meal at no cost. For many, it was one less worry they had to deal with.

“It’s a community thing and it’s just beautiful to see so many people reaching out because it shows me that not everyone is bad in this world,” Wheeler said. “People come from all over and ask what they can do to help.

Wheeler, who is 81 years old, said the dinner typically serves between 125 and 200 people each year. Many of the food items served are donated from local businesses and residents.

“It truly has been my life and my story,” Wheeler said, reflecting on a life of feeding people who might need it.

Wheeler’s passion started when she was 8 years old and in second grade. She went home for lunch because her family lived right across the street from her school in Langhorne. When she went home to eat, a boy from her class followed and asked her for some lunch, explaining that his home didn’t have anything for him to eat.

From that moment on, Wheeler’s passion was to feed the hungry. She snuck sandwiches into school for the boy until her mother found out and told her she needed to stop. Instead of stopping, she went hungry while giving her own lunch away.

Now, Wheeler’s message and cause has grown and gotten so popular that there are often nearly as many volunteers as there are people taking advantage of the service on Thanksgiving.

After Thanksgiving, Wheeler doesn’t sit idle for the rest of the year. Her fight to feed and help people is one that extends all year long.

“I can’t describe how it feels,” Wheeler said of her work. “Each year it changes but each year is really the same, too.”

Last year was almost the aging Wheeler’s final time hosting the dinner due to declining health. As Thanksgiving drew nearer and nearer, she decided she couldn’t sit idly by. “I get older every year, but my passion gets stronger,” she told LevittownNow.com.

Although she isn’t a Catholic, friends and people close to the work she does have taken to calling her “Sister Wheeler.” One on occasion, Wheeler recounted someone called her the “Mother Theresa” of Bucks County.

That first dinner took place in her uncle’s dining room and was chiefly for some two dozen people from Byberry State Hospital in Northeast Philadelphia. In the following few years, local churches caught on to Wheeler’s message and started offering up their dining halls for Wheeler’s cause.

The Bristol Township resident said that ever since finding her calling when she was a young girl, she has gone out of her way to help people. Wheeler describes the joy she gets from helping people as a true blessing.

“I just want to be a servant of the Lord,” she said.