MAYFIELD, Ky. — Nothing touches the heart more than a hot meal. 


What You Need To Know

  • Franklin Graham and Ricky Skaggs served hot meals

  • Volunteers with Samaritan’s Purse help serve meals and distributed gifts

  • Samaritan’s Purse sent staff and three cooking trailers to Mayfield to prepare the food

  • 1,400 volunteers have responded to the disaster through Samaritan's Purse

Samaritan’s Purse served warm food at the Graves County High School on Friday to people in the Mayfield community.

“Ham? Do you want gravy on your turkey and mashed potatoes? I'm so glad you're here today. I hope you have a merry Christmas,” said Abigail Holmes to people receiving food in the line.

She along with other volunteers served all the fixings including ham and turkey.

But for the last two days, she has volunteered her time with Samaritan's Purse picking up debris from destructed homes.

“I saw the tornado on TV and I was just moved to come volunteer and to help the people of Mayfield,” Holmes said.

She made the trek to Mayfield 7 hours away from Carter County, Tennessee.

“My children are with their grandparents and my father is in North Carolina with family so instead of being alone for the holidays, I'm here serving,” Holmes said.

In another line inside the school’s cafeteria, Samaritan's Purse CEO and son of Billy Graham, Franklin Graham served meals alongside Bluegrass and Country Music legend Ricky Skaggs.

“We have storms in life. And all of us go through storms and there'll be people here have been told they have cancer and other persons maybe their marriages are collapsing and we all go through these various storms and of course here tornadoes,” Graham said.

Tornadoes have devastated and taken lives, homes and businesses and much more from Mayfield and neighboring towns. This doesn't mean that God doesn't love us. God loves us and he cares for us. And I think it's important that we come to the communities like this and stand with them, just show them that we do care.”

Tornadoes devastated area on Dec. 11 and have taken lives, homes and businesses and much more from Mayfield and neighboring towns.

“This is our little town, this is our little town and to see people just come from the whole world and just love on us, you know, it takes what it takes and it took an EF-4 tornado, I guess to blow through our town but we feel the love,” said Faye Janes, a Mayfield resident.

Samatrain’s Purse has sent 1,400 volunteers to respond to the disaster. The teams have helped more than 240 families in Kentucky.

As of Friday, less than a thousand people still remain without power in Mayfield but the city utility reports 82% of electric customers are back in service.