As most folks gear up for Thanksgiving and all the holiday includes — a few lazy days off watching football, eating too much turkey and shopping in the wee hours of the morning on Black Friday — some struggle financially even to provide the smallest of celebrations for their families. Some may not even have the luxury of celebrating at all because they have no home.

In the spirit of the holiday season and giving back to those less fortunate, a new local group called Newton — A Community United is sponsoring a free Thanksgiving meal for Jasper County families in serious financial need.

“A lot of us members at the Elks go to the homeless shelter in Des Moines and feed them on the holidays, and last year we did a coat drive ... and took coats and clothes to the Central Iowa Homeless Shelter,” said group member and meal organizer LeAnn Karsten. “When we collected those items we had a lot of people ask if we could do something like that in Newton, so we decided to keep it in Newton this year.”