I need help feeding 120 people for $120 dollars!

I would go to GFS or another warehouse store. I would get some corn, mashed potatoes, gravy. You could also do a green bean casserole. I would go to aldis or a bakery outlet and get rolls. Get the day old ones and freeze them. They will cost alot less and will be fine. If you don't want two casseroles, grab their 10lb. potato salad or macaroni salad. You may have to add some celery or relish and mustard if you think they need it. I would pick up the ham or turkey when the stores start running them on sale for the Thanksgiving. They will also run the pies on sale. I think you can do it for that, but you are going to really have to work at it. How many gifts do they expect you to get with that also? You could also go with apple crisp and cherry crisp for dessert instead of pies. That would be cheaper. ham- 20 turkey- 15 corn- 10 rolls 10 potato salad or green been casserole 10 pies 30 butter 5 gravy 10 Is there anyway to get people from the church to donate desserts? Just a thought. That is going to be your big expense, besides meat.

I think feeding 120 people for 120$ is tough. You need to get more money. Pray that God may help you and I will be praying for this. You can ask for help from neighbouring churches for the dinner. God will surely open doors to fee his people. May be you can consider some fundraising activity for this. On what to feed for cheap, you can consider noodles, bread and carbohydrates stuff. Think of ways to stretch the food items. A meat dish need not be made of meat itself. Think of adding potato, tomatoes, onion and stuff like that. A dessert can be readymade icecream with some fruits. For all these some more money is required. Still 2 more months to think of ways. Pray and God will answer!

In Utah i don't know what the cost of living would be there but I've managed to do something like that minus the gifts here in Miami with $100 and it fed atleast 150 if you have the right server serving the food. The trick is to have enough little stuff to serve smaller portions but enough to fill the appetite. U can go to a whole food store or place like wal-mart and get the can goods that would run you about 2 bucks per can for a family size. You can get corn, a large box of mashed potatoes get a loaf of bread and slice the bread in fours (shaped like triangles) to make it look like more, cranberry sauce (slice the slices in half), and for the meat I'm sure you can find a wholesale place online that you can get a nice size ham or turkey for a decent price that isn't over your budget. And if you want mac and cheese purchase the ingredients make it at home, I've made mac and cheese to feed about 100 employees for about 10 bucks. Coupons help too and for your gifts thats a great idea with the cookbooks u can go to a dollar store and get some color construction paper and make covers, use yarn to tie the book together and there you go. The key to it is having different things in smaller portions to level out portions on the plates.

woww... that will be really tough... $1 per person and you still have to prepare the gift as well... ummm... it will have to be no meat then... or less meat and more vegetables as it is much cheaper... anyway, you still have some times to think about it and i hope other mylot members here can give you a better idea... good luck... take care and have a nice day...

Wow, that is a dollar a person. The problem is the turkey or ham. Can you get some wholesale? Or direct from a farmer (already prepared, of course)? The sides can be done cheaply. Mashed potatoes. Oooh, coupons. Look for them, use them. See if people will donate the free turkey or ham they get from their grocery store promotion.

120 person for $120? hmmmm, just prepare simple but healthy food at the same time cheap. If im the one who will prepare. Im goin to prepare top of my list is soup, coz its cheaper and u can feed a lot of person already from it, then some vegetable salad and a ham if u would like....

Well first of all thats a really small budget which I know you know that. Here is my idea. Definatly do turkey over ham. Or Possiably if you find a good deal one of each. Make sure you cut all the meat in smaller peices. Second do intanst stuff instead of making every thing from scratch. For instance do instant mased potatoes add some garlic and parsely and wahla they are perfect! You can make a lot more for less with instant. Stuffing. Same thing! Do instant. Bread is expensive these days! Or if you insist on having real stuffing go to a local bakery and buy the breads from yesterday they are always cheaper freeze them. You may need to go a few times. Do green beans and corn for veggies and use the frozen ones they are much cheaper. If I were you I'd be on the phone trying to get donated gift cards from the local stores that way you have more to spend on presents. I think you can do the food on the budget but I don't think you can do food and presents. Now for the presents. I would go to a dollar store and get the gift little bags that come like 20 or 25 for a buck. Then I would look around for things that you can break up. Like I know Target always has in there dollar isle things like nail polish 3 or a buck or even some thing like chip clips 3 or 4 for a dollar. Any thing that you are getting a few for a dollar that you can break up. Even sheets of Christmas stickers you could put in. Any thing little that can fit in the bag. Or make some thing to stick in the bag. Make every one an ornimant. Your idea for a cook book is good but I did that in the past and it didn't go over that well. What about a prayer book! Also either way I would use colored paper and I would make each page hold 4 recepies or prayers or even both. Then I would make a cover and a back. You can hole punch one hole in the top left corner and use a pretty bow to tie the pages together.

Why not do Pot luck? Pot luck is when everyone brings food for everyone. Maybe that would save you enough money for gifts and a few food. Since your budget is not that big I suggest this. Since it is Christmas I think they wouldn't mind doing so. Christmas is all about sharing and giving. Even if not all the 120 people bring food you will have enough if 20 people bring something or even 15 would do. Your only obligation is have people show up bringing something. Talk to those people invited and tell them that it is gonna be a pot luck Christmas dinner. Tell them that since Christmas is all for sharing and giving you guys decided on this to get the spirit of sharing and giving on this special Christmas dinner. If you got 20 people who said yes they'll bring something then Hallelujah. Like the little Boy in the bible who had a few bread and fish that fed a plenty then you will do the same there. Good luck my friend.

This is going to be a hard one! I think that the first thing you should do is go to some grocery stores or meat markets and see if they are willing to donate or give you a discount on your purchase. Once our youth group made stromboli for a fundraiser and one meat market gave me 25% off our entire order. This helped us tremendously. I would first off focus on the trukey or ham. Buy whichever is cheaper. Then for the sides, ask the committee members to sign up and bring something. So many can bring a bag of salad and a dressing, so many can bring some corn, so many can bring cranberry sauce , so many can bring rolls and ask everyone to bring Christmas cookies for dessert. Once we did a dinner for the church, but we had butterbit sandwiches and soups. We asked the committee members to each sign up to bring a crockpot of soup. Others brought tuna, egg and chicken salad. The only thing we ended up paying for were the rolls and a cake~ which we got 1/2 price by asking the bakery in town if they would give us a deal. I would definitely get this all in line now. Lots of places can't donate unless they have a request in writing and then it takes the some time to get back to you. Also start on that cookbook immediately. I know from our church putting together a cookbook, it takes alot of time typing and putting it together. Good luck ~ it sounds like it will be a nice event.

Usually around the holidays, groceries stores give out free turkeys because of a certain amount of money you have spent in the store. See if there are church members that will give you their receipts for the free turkey or turkeys. See if the grocery store will donate a turkey or ham. The side dishes are simple because they are the cheapest to purchase. Why don't the ladies of the church donate baked goods, why would you have to buy it out of the $120.00. I would suggest that cakes be donated, and the parishers donates some side dishes.

hi there happy thoughts. first, let me tell you how pleased i am with your choice of gift. i am sure the ladies will very much appreciate it. for the food, i don't think you can serve turkey to 120 people at your budget. maybe the ham will do plus some delicious pasta and home-made breads you can bake yourself. For your dessert, you can also whip up a nice ice cream. enjoy your upcoming dinner. have fun!

MEXICAN FOOD. make your own tortillas, big bag of rice, raw beans. There is no way you are going to have the typical Christmas dinner for $120 for a 120 people.

Go in for seasonal vegetables as they are the cheapest. Anything out of season will cost a fortune. Keep only one non veg dish. keep the non veg dish limited, and permit only one helping. Keep some cheap dish in larger quantity so that it can act as a filler.

Why not ask one of the fifty percent of the planets population that live on less than a dollar a day? perhaps they would give you some insight into feeding people for peanuts? and how about making a toast at your church xmas dinner to all the people cold and hungry?

Its a nice thing that you have such a good idea in feeding people this christmas. i would like my family to be happy in that day and as well as others,i wanted to help what i can. your right we need to plan ahead of time so that it wont be that hard in christmas to provide any help or to prepare in that dinner. during christmas we do cook spagetti,salad,ham,turkey and other dishes and desert.so it will be nice if you prepare salad, any kind of salad.

I'd say keep it as simple as you can...look for sales on the items you need for the traditional dinner. [b]~~IN SEARCH OF PEACE WITHIN~~ **AGAINST THE STORMS, I WILL STAND STRONG** [/b]

That is going to be a big challenge! I don't really know of any ideas to give you other than look for sales. Maybe you could find a store that is offering a special deal that if you spend so much money then you get a free dollar amount of groceries. I think that the cookbook would be a great idea! It would be a cheap but nice gift for the ladies. Let us know how it goes and if you meet your budget!

I don't know how you are going with this but I personally think that they have made this really unfair task for anyone to complete, HOW can anyone think that you can feed anyone with just $1 and yes I know that you have a budget to work too but Im sorry that commitee much have left their brains at home that day when they thought that they would be able to feed 120 people for only $120 dollars they need a real reality check seriously.....!!!!!!!! And happy if you are able to pull it off then I hope that they know and understand as to what you would have gone through to do it for them and appreciate it too as this is a very hard job to do and I give you 10 out of 10 for trying I know I couldn't do it! Good Luck hope it all works out well for you.

Have you asked for donations from local grocery stores and stores like Walmart etc? Usually around here is it's for a local school or church the stores will donate food or gift cards towards foods. When I am doing a fund raiser for our school, I write a letter explaining who we are, what we are doing and what we are looking for from them and go in and ask to speak to the manager, explain who I am, go over the details in the letter (the letter is for their records), and thank them for taking the time to talk to me. Generally they give me a gift card then, some stores have to check with the corporate offices so give yourself some lead time. If all else fails, have a fund raiser first, this time of year a bake sale or gift wrapping booth outside a local mall or department store works well (some even allow you to do them in the foyer or lobby). Good luck and have fun!

You can find lots of food items and gifts cheap at Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree, Wholefoods 365 brand (Otherwise Wholefoods is pretty expensive) and Trader Joes. Dollar stores are great too! But Dollar Tree has the best gifts I think..