As Americans nationwide load their shopping carts with frozen turkeys and sweet potatoes, several Howard County congregations are gearing up for their own Thanksgiving traditions of holiday worship and providing food to the needy.

"Thanksgiving is an opportunity to look at what we're thankful for, to look at all the gifts we've been given," said Rev. Harry Brunett of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Glenwood. "Gratitude and sharing are our responses."

St. Andrew's will conduct a Thanksgiving service for its outreach ministry, Journeys Community, at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at Clemens Crossing Elementary School in Columbia. The theme will be "Sharing and Giving Back," and congregants will share experiences that made a difference in their lives through readings, poems, music and videos.

"Journeys is designed for people looking for a spiritual experience of God, but who have not found it through traditional worship," Brunett said.

Better to give

The church also steps up its year-round food and clothing drive for Baltimore's homeless, in partnership with the Church of the Guardian Angel in Remington, with increased donations for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

St. Andrew's is also one of seven western Howard churches participating in an annual ecumenical Thanksgiving Eve service. This year, Shepherd of the Glen Lutheran Church in Glenwood will be host of the service at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Worshipers also will bring packaged foods for the food bank at St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church in Lisbon. "It's an appropriate way to celebrate Thanksgiving," said Glen Lutheran's pastor, the Rev. Jim Luedeke.

Bethel Assembly of God will be host of the Savage Association of Churches' Thanksgiving service at 6 p.m. Sunday. "We want to pause and give thanks to God like the Pilgrims did," said the Rev. E. Don Cox, Bethel's pastor.

The Rev. Paul Viswasam, pastor of First Baptist Church of Savage, will lead the service, which includes a children's choir and soloists from the five churches.

Offerings will be taken for the Bethel food pantry, which provides groceries for the Howard County Food Bank, and for First Baptist's Bread of Life food pantry. "Jesus showed a lot of compassion to those who didn't have much," said the Rev. John Green, Bethel's associate pastor. "And we want to give back to the community."

Providing meals

Bethel's food pantry will provide holiday meal supplies - including frozen turkeys - to local needy families today and Monday, and through Home Missions Church, which distributes food packages in Baltimore County.

First Baptist also provides weekly food packages to about 15 families in Howard, Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties. The families pick up the packages Wednesday evenings at the church's food pantry. The bulk of supplies are donated annually by Patuxent Valley Middle School in Savage.

First Baptist also prepares Thanksgiving food baskets with turkey for about 100 families delivered by the church's youth ministry Thanksgiving morning.

"We just want to teach our young people to be grateful," Viswasam said. "One way to be grateful is to help others. We want our children to learn that giving is better than receiving. Caring for others is also the meaning of Thanksgiving."

First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ellicott City will lead a candlelight Thanksgiving Eve Service at 7:30 p.m. The service will include reflections by three congregants on why they are thankful. A program led by music director Tom Leeseberg-Lange will feature four adult and children's choirs, one bell choir, and a 15-minute piano recital for the left hand performed by Leeseberg-Lange's mother, Joanna Lange, a former concert pianist who suffered a stroke.

Leeseberg-Lange's sister, violinist Cathy Lange Jensen, and her husband, percussionist Richard Jensen, both members of the Cincinnati Symphony, will play accompaniment during the service.

Interfaith service

One of the largest communitywide programs is the 35th Annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Eve Service at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Columbia's Wilde Lake Interfaith Center.

"It's a community celebration to show how our faith affects our desire to give thanks," said coordinator George Martin, deacon at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Columbia. "And it's a way of sharing each other's perspective of what Thanksgiving means."

This year's theme will be "God's Love Brings Hope, Thanksgiving and Peace." Representatives of local faith communities - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Baha'i, Buddhist, Unitarian-Universalist and Zoroastrian - will discuss how their tradition incorporates the service's theme. Food and monetary collections will be taken.

The St. John's children's choir and Bell Ringers choir, and Baha'i children's dance group will perform.

St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church in Ellicott City will lead a 9 a.m. Thanksgiving Day service.

Through the St. Vincent de Paul Society - the church's primary link with the needy in Howard County - St. Paul's provides food and gifts to 10 needy families each Thanksgiving and Christmas. "We go to the Salvation Army and say, 'Give us 10 families,'" said congregant Leo Sofianek, society treasurer. "People need assistance, and that's what we're here for." The church erects a "giving tree" of Christmas gift lists for members of the 10 families. Parishioners purchase and donate items from the lists on the tree.

Last weekend, congregants donated nonperishable food for the families who also will receive Thanksgiving dinner fixings that society members purchase and deliver Saturday.