There is no more gratifying sight than a well-run community outreach program. In operation for only a few years, Family to Family, the branch of Serving Hands (nee The Surplus Food Program) on the Vineyard, which dispenses turkey dinners to families in need before Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, outdid itself on Friday, Dec. 12. In the charming butter-yellow rooms of the parish house of the First Baptist Church of Vineyard Haven, volunteers passed out the usual Friday-after-the-second-Wednesday food staples (delivered monthly from The Greater Boston Food Bank), along with 125 of Family to Family vaunted turkey dinners, each package consisting of a 12-pound frozen turkey, bags of potatoes, onions and apples, a box of stuffing mix, a butternut squash, an acorn squash, a can of pumpkin pie filling and another of turkey gravy.

Each full complement of food is assembled from donations of $25 per meal (and many people send checks of $100 for four meals or other combinations) from friends and supporters of the tri-annual gifting of this special holiday package.

At the heart of this event is Betty Burton, formerly of Vineyard Haven, now of Oak Bluffs, who reminds this reporter of a philanthropic version of Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, the movie in which, no matter how much the man/machine has been hobbled in the last scenes, he keeps lurching forward to carry out his mission.

In the past few weeks, Ms. Burton has cracked her shoulder, been accidentally clopped on the head and, only a few days ago, her youngest of three children, Grace, flipped a car into a snow bank in the Adirondacks (she’s fine), yet for last Friday’s event, Ms. Burton, with her left arm in a cast to support her shoulder, was on hand to greet the parade of Family to Family recipients.

She has plenty of cheerful helpers, including her husband, author John Sundman, who always has been ready to leave his nanotech thriller novels and his brainy blogsite, wetmachine.com, to supply some brawn. Other volunteers are Bob and Bonnie George, Ron Zentner, Marilyn Miller, Anna Carter, Monique Clermont, Tim Tuerff and Annie Tuerff. And finally, on that Friday after the second Wednesday of each month, Brian Kennedy, who runs the community work service program, sends over some strapping young men to heft boxes of food from the storage space to the front parlors of the parish hall.

Ms. Burton explained how Serving Hands developed on the Island: “It was back in the mid-1990s when Dick McLean and I got to know one another through work at the Food Pantry.” (Mr. McLean, active in key nonprofit groups during his years on the Vineyard, moved from his Lagoon-side house in Oak Bluffs to Florida in 2003). “He’d taken it upon himself to start up a branch of Surplus Foods here, whose goods he stashed in the basement of the Methodist Church” — in Vineyard Haven, where the Food Pantry conducts its business — “and dispensing it once a month from that location.”

In this semi-orphaned state, Surplus Foods needed a home, and members of First Baptist stepped up to make their parish hall available, even taking it upon themselves to hire workmen to add on the rear storage compartment.

Ms. Burton continued, “Dick talked me into taking over as president of the mother ship, the Vineyard Committee On Hunger, and the minute I started with the job, he told me, ‘Oh, by the way, the president of VCOH oversees Surplus Foods.’ My answer to that was ‘Huh?!’” She got over the ‘huh’ point quickly, as Ms. Burton is wont to do, and snapped to it.

Recently Ms. Burton got around to changing the name: “’Surplus’ sounds like food left out on the corner for two weeks, and it’s not like that at all. In addition to lots of canned and packaged goods, the Food Bank often sends us a palette of cheese, eggs, chicken, ground beef, and it’s all still fresh — in fact, they make me take a class on the mainland every other year to keep up on food safety. Our clientele includes many of the more vulnerable members of the community — the elderly, infants, people with health conditions — and these are the folks most easily affected by food that has been in any way compromised.”

Ms. Burton said the idea for turkey dinners occurred to her a few years ago because the Food Bank always shipped 20 turkeys before the holidays.

“Word got out that we had this extra consignment, so 40 people would show up, and it would break our hearts to have to send the second half away without turkeys. Then I got to talking with Bobby Pachico,” (of Reliable Market in Oak Bluffs), “and he agreed to put together this fabulous package for $25. Over the years the food amounts have stayed the same, but Mr. Pachico has never raised the price, so I’m sure he’s subsidizing this program to some extent.”

In addition to Reliable’s generous assistance, Morning Glory Farm sent over bins of potatoes and squash, and that shrine to the sweet-toothed among us, Chilmark Chocolates, donated dozens of bags of their best product.

Most of the people who take advantage of the Serving Hands program are pre-qualifed by being enrolled with the Food Pantry, so all they need do to receive a monthly allotment from Serving Hands and/or the Family to Family turkey dinner is to show their card for the former establishment.

Absent that particular affiliation, they can also demonstrate need by being signed up with fuel assistance, health access services, food stamps, and so on.

For the recent Friday event, over 100 people appeared for turkey dinners. Rev. Roger Spinney, pastor for both the Baptist church in Vineyard Haven and the Baptist church in Aquinnah, offered to drop by later in the afternoon to ferry the remaining packages to needy families up-Island.

Anyone wishing to donate to this hope-inspiring food program can send checks earmarked for Family to Family in care of the Vineyard Committee on Hunger at P.O. Box 1874, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568.