Like most places, Bremen VFW Post 2791 will be shut down on Christmas Day.

That wasn’t the plan, however.

The Tinley Park facility way supposed to be hopping with more than 60 recruits from Naval Station Great Lakes for a holiday feast. These are young men and women who could not be home with their families and local veterans wanted to give them a special holiday.

Aside from food and refreshments, the veterans planned to provide cellphone and computer access so the sailors could call, Zoom or Skype with their loved ones. The all-day affair would involve more than 45 volunteers giving up a part of their holiday to help make things as nice for the Navy rookies as possible.

This was a tradition started in 2013 when Fred Cagle took over as commander of the post, though it was on a smaller scale.

But in 2019, it was canceled when Navy officials chose not to participate. In 2020, COVID-19 led to another cancellation.

This year was going to be its biggest bash ever.

But Navy officials over the weekend informed Cagle that COVID-19 concerns would force another cancellation. The problem was this time the food was already lined up via donations.

So the post was active Monday and Tuesday distributing 10 turkeys, a ham plus 2,353 pounds of food that the Andrew football team collected.

“Now all of that food is going to the veterans and it’s going to the general population,” Cagle said.

The chow was divvied up between the Tinley Park-based Together We Cope, the Tinley Park Food Pantry, the Manteno Veterans Home and the Prince Home in Manteno, which is a program for homeless and disabled veterans.

“We just got rid of the last can,”

Cagle said Tuesday afternoon. “We unpacked everything from the bags and sorted it all out. We packed it up in boxes and delivered it with our van. It’s all going to the needy and that’s what counts.”

Even though the party is a lot of work and people were scheduled to miss a chunk of Christmas, some of the veterans were sad that it was canceled for a third straight year.

“I would go there every year and tell them of my Navy experiences,” post member Mark Ethridge said. “I would always tell them, ‘you’re life ain’t going to be the same, people. It’s as simple as that.’ ”

Andrew’s football team’s role in collecting the food was huge.

This was the T-Bolt Football Foundation’s first Meals for the Military project. Coach Adam Lewandowski said that for the past six years, he wanted his team to tackle a major initiative that would help people and it lined up this year.

“We finally had the right opportunity and the right people around to make that vision a reality,” Lewandowski said. “The VFW has been on my brain for the last six years and this was the right time to do this.”

Lewandowski said the foundation’s operating officer, Eric Tanquilut, came up with the idea to have players drop off bags in their neighborhoods in Tinley Park, Orland Hills and Oak Forest and have people donate that way, rather than the traditional door-to-door approach.

“It was very little legwork for generous people in the community and we assumed all the labor and responsibility ourselves,” Lewandowski said.

The massive amount of food the T-Bolts collected could seemingly feed a small army. Or, in this case, a small Navy. Lewandowski credits the community for its willing to help.

“I am not surprised at all but I’m very humbled by it,” he said. “We have an amazing community here where people care about others. It was a very blessed activity and a blessed mission of ours.”

The party is off. The food won’t be going to the recruits.

But that doesn’t disappoint the coach. He knows the hard work his players and the foundation put in still paid off after the VFW called the audible to redistribute the food.

“Even though the original plans did not go according to what we thought they were going to be, God’s got a purpose and a bigger plan,” Lewandowski said. “He wanted the food to go where it went and so it did.”

Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.