A rain-soaked Roy Barreto knew exactly how many years he has worked the Thanksgiving basket program at St. Gregory the Great Church.

“It’s been 23 years,” he said Tuesday during a respite of carrying bags of food to cars as they pulled up to the doors of the church office.

And how long has the church been doing a Thanksgiving basket program?

That question threw him.

“Well, maybe I’ve been doing it the whole time,” he said from beneath his hooded jacket. Not quite.

Cheryl Berube, who coordinates the program, glanced up from a handful of papers listing each of the recipients and their contact information. By 11 a.m. more than half of those 150 to receive baskets had made pickups. Berube was getting ready to make calls to ensure everyone on the list got their fixings for a Thanksgiving dinner in time.

Berube said the parish has run the program for more than 25 years. In the beginning, parishioners made home deliveries. That proved to be problematic as frequently people weren’t home and drivers had to make multiple runs.

The list of recipients is provided by Westbay Community Action and cleared through Neighbors Helping Neighbors that is coordinated by Roberta Steinle of the city department of human services. Neighbors acts as a clearing house for recipients to ensure that all those seeking assistance get it while seeing multiple baskets don’t go to one family and another gets none.

A team of volunteers filled the St. Gregory the Great baskets (actually bags) so that they’re ready for pickup Tuesday morning.