Photo by Sabrina Pankratz Kids did crafts together at the Holy Redeemer School cafeteria during the Marshall Young Catholic Families Thanksgiving Potluck on Saturday.

MARSHALL — Many people, such as Chasity Soupir, gathered at the Marshall Young Catholic Families’ first Thanksgiving Potluck on Saturday to make new connections.

“I love that our families can come together and casually gather. It provides something that our community doesn’t have,” said Soupir, a member of the Marshall Young Catholic Families.

The night was filled with food, crafts and games for the kids, and a sense of community for the group.

“We had a better turnout then we anticipated, we were worried we were going to run out of food,” said Elissa MacMurchy, an organizer of the group.

First timers to the group Bernadette Deutz and Kaityn Voss were chatting in the Holy Redeemer gym while kids were playing games.

“It’s some of our groups of friends we know and it’s people our age,” Deutz said. “We just haven’t been able to make the earlier ones (meetings) so it’s the first time we were able to come.”

A new group, Marshall Young Catholic Families meets once a month to bring young families together.

“It’s hard for young families with kids to connect with other families with young kids and build meaningful relationships. So, we’re hoping this group can remedy that and fill the need,” MacMurchy said. “Tonight’s main goal is all about building a community of like-minded younger families with young kids and just getting to know one another.”

“Our kids can make friends with each other and it just helps build connections within our parish (the Holy Redeemer) that we knew were there but are hard to make in a big church,” Soupir said.

“Its been a really great way for us to build community, because our parish is so large and that can make it difficult to form these relationships and this has been really good for that,” said Emily Dorshner, another organizer of the group.