Dec. 24 -- LIMA -- Over 20 volunteers started the gift-giving a day early as they handed out Christmas dinners and food items to families in a drive-thru on Christmas Eve morning.

From 9 to 11 a.m., over 2,000 meals were expected to be given out. Meals prepared in to-go boxes consisted of ham, green beans, mashed potatoes, and a dinner roll. Volunteers, including Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus, also handed out bags of potatoes, cartons of eggs, loaves of Italian bread, and bags of Lindor and Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

According to West Ohio Food Bank CEO Tommie Harner, the drive-thru style pick-up was the fourth of its kind, with the first happening in 2020 during the pandemic.

"It's gotten bigger and bigger each year," she said. "They just come through and tell us how many meals they want, and then we will give that out."

Growing each year from its initial 700 to 1,000 meals in 2020, Harner expects continuous growth in the future.

"Eventually we would love to expand this into our 11 counties of service," she said. "It is a goal that we're looking at sponsorship so we can at least provide some of these meals throughout each of those counties.

In addition to the volunteers handing out various items at the food bank, there were about 10 others delivering meals to shut-ins and individuals without transportation.

"It's just being able to provide something to someone who may not have a meal, just like the senior complexes that we deliver to, a lot of those individuals may not even have family around," Harner said. "They have the ability to have a nice Christmas meal that they can have either today or tomorrow."