Everyone had a specific job Wednesday as the Response to Love Center on Buffalo's East side prepared for Thanksgiving dinner.

The maintenance team did the heavy lifting and moved the boxes.

Another group set up the decorations and table settings for hundreds of expected guests.

And the carving party -- mostly men -- sliced up 49 turkeys.

About 80 volunteers from the neighborhood and beyond helped out Wednesday with the sixth annual "Turkey Carving Day," set aside to prepare the turkey and many of the trimmings the day before Thanksgiving.

"We get the whole community involved. It's a community event," said Sister Mary Johnice Rzadkiewicz, the center's longtime director.

Response to Love was just one of several local organizations that are providing hot meals for Thanksgiving to the area's poor, homeless and homebound senior citizens. Volunteers at City Mission, for example, prepared and packaged meals Wednesday for delivery today.

For 25 years, Response to Love, located at 130 Kosciuszko St., has served turkey dinners to people in the neighborhood, including 400 last year.

The center also has a thrift store, a soup kitchen and food pantry that operate year-round.

Ryan Gueli and his friend Simon Wagner, both 17-year-old seniors at St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute in the Town of Tonawanda, constituted the maintenance team for Wednesday's preparation for Thanksgiving dinner. Family connections to Response to Love inspired the two to start volunteering years ago.

"My mom was taught by Sister Johnice," said Ryan, who lives on Kosciuszko.

"My mom volunteered here, and I have been coming here since I was 10 or 11," Simon said.

The two said they never mind helping out each year. The reward was knowing they made a difference.

"I come here, and I really see we really are helping. People are so happy and grateful. It's worth giving up Xbox for a day," Ryan said.

Deanna Rusek, a 45-year-old Cheektowaga resident, headed the table setup team.

The team, which included two others, cleaned the tables, wiped down chairs and put up donated decorations. Students from Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School on William Street in Cheektowaga make the place mats each year.

Rusek has volunteered for "Turkey Carving Day" for six years. Her involvement began when she enrolled in a religious service class at D'Youville College. She has been bringing along her daughter Kayla, now 14. Children need to see that not everyone has it as good as they do, Rusek explained.

"You don't really realize what you have until you see what others don't have," Rusek said.

Kayla, a freshman at Cheektowaga Central High School who works on her mother's decorating team, said knowing that she was helping others was nice.

"We're trying to make it like home," Kayla said. "Even though I'm not here on Thanksgiving Day, I can just picture people are happy coming here."

Kayla also volunteers at Response to Love during the summer, sorting clothes in the thrift store, working with little children and sometimes serving food in the soup kitchen.

First-year carver Jay Mazurkiewicz said he tries to volunteer every year at a different location or by doing various tasks.

Even though it was his first time volunteering for "Turkey Carving Day," Mazurkiewicz, of Hamburg, said he will be back next year.

"I was off today, so I came down," he said. "It was a pleasure to cut with these guys."

Larry Cichocki of West Seneca pitched in as a "master carver." The 59-year-old Air Force veteran served in Iraq and started volunteering years ago through his wife.

"But I'm here today. She's home," he joked.

Today, a different set of 100 volunteers will prepare the last-minute trimmings and then serve a hot dinner, dessert and seconds to guests.

Doors will open at 10 a.m.

dswilliams@buffnews.com