Operation Turkey reaches out to the homeless
...Excerpt from the Austin American Statesman...
Hundreds of volunteers hand out dinner, clothes and affection.
Six years ago, Richard Bagdonas piled his Thanksgiving dinner leftovers on a paper plate and drove down Sixth Street looking to give them to a homeless person. He spotted two men, one of whom had no arms and no legs and was, naturally, in a wheelchair.
Bagdonas approached them and gave them the plate. The man in the wheelchair, who was unable to speak, simply looked at Bagdonas. "Thank you," the other man said, and began to feed his friend from the plate of leftovers.
Bagdonas went back to his car and started to cry. That moment of spontaneity and emotion was the beginning of Operation Turkey, a grass-roots program that now boasts hundreds of volunteers in several cities who deliver homemade food to the homeless on Thanksgiving.
"They're too proud to go to the shelter, or they don't know if the shelters are available," said Bagdonas, now 33. "Or they're afraid if they go, they'll get beat up. So we go to them."
Operation Turkey, which started in Bagdonas' Cedar Park kitchen, is now sponsored by a handful of local businesses that collect food and toiletries to give to the program.
Bagdonas said Operation Turkey does not collect cash donations, just food, drink and clothes — and energy — each year between Halloween and Thanksgiving Day.
Thursday morning, hundreds of volunteers showed up at the Soup Peddler, a soup-at-your-door business in the Bouldin Creek neighborhood owned by David Ansel.
Ansel was out of town Thursday but donated his kitchen to the operation.
On the front sidewalk, just below a window featuring the peddler's motto, "Soup is Love," stacks of folded clothes, plastic foam containers and toiletries sat waiting.
Within a few hours, Bagdonas had instructed volunteers to help mash potatoes and otherwise get the food ready, handed out maps to volunteers, assigned some women volunteers to help children draw turkeys on top of the containers and dispatched a caravan of mismatched cars to points around the city.
Leibel Harelik, a kosher chef who volunteered with Operation Turkey last year, said he and five other volunteers made 75 meals last year. Those were distributed to the homeless in 45 minutes.
This year, he expected to make between 300 and 500 meals. There were at least 100 people gathered to help.
Among them: Heidi Juliar of Austin, a real estate broker who typically volunteers with Meals on Wheels. She brought along her sons, J.P. and Riley Ebert. They packed clothes and toiletries in the back of their black Volvo and set out, followed by a green Volkswagen loaded with dozens of containers full of turkey, stuffing, green beans and mashed potatoes with gravy.
Justin Delva, a Washington transplant, and his friend Yifeng Qiu, who is from Canada, handed out the food at the first stop, Wooldridge Park, while Juliar and her sons gave out hugs and jackets. The cars then drove to the Drag. At each place, homeless men gathered quietly around the trunk of the Volvo and the Volkswagen, muttering thanks or "God bless you."
"It's the best Thanksgiving," Juliar said. She and her boys planned to wrap up their day with a dinner at Truluck's, but Operation Turkey was what made her holiday.
"I can't gorge myself and watch football and fall asleep anymore. I like things like this, things that make you cry a good cry," she said.
"My heart aches for them. There but for the grace of God go I, you know?"
joshundasanders@statesman.com; 445-3630
www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/11/24/24peddler.html
The following volunteers participated in Austin's Operation Turkey.
Jason Abshire, Jennifer Adame, Karen Adamo, DeeDee Adams, Chris Adams, Ruby Akin, Kira Alexandre, Rachael Alger, John Arnolds, Richard Bagdonas, Heather Baginski, Charles Benner, Jeff Bienstock, Amy Botelho, Jennifer Burns, John Calvert, Mandy Calvert, Dee Carney, Ruben Castilla, Julia Chandrasekaran, Sriram Chandrasekaran, Sylvia Choi, Dennis Colwell, Blair Cox, Cindy Crosby, Gwen Cruchon, Brenda Cuellar, Joyce Cymerman, Victor Cypert, Rachael Daigle, Casey Degnan, Deb Deitch-Harelik, Justin Delva, Adawna Devine, Jeffrey Donovan, J.P. Ebert, Riley Ebert, Kate Edwards, Alberto Edwards, Riley Edwards, Lee Edwards, Brendan Egan, John Evans, Carol Farr, Michael Feferman, Rebecca Feferman, Martha Feferman, Vivian Fisher, Kristen Flores, Justin Follin, Linda Ford, Denise Fraga, Jim Genevro, Eileen Genevro, Danny Goodwin, Kristi Gotcher, Jake Gotcher, Barbara Graves, Doug Guller, David Gwin, Ilene Haddad, Nathan Hamann, Leah Hamann, Caroline Hamann, Jenny Harden, Leibel B. Harelik, Sherri Henderson, Amirah Henderson, Woody Hosler, Erin Ivery, Sam Jarmon, Billy Jett, Elizabeth Jett, Sarah Jett, Heidi Juliar, Paula Keels, Keegan Keels, Callie Keels, Griffin Keels, Sawyer Keels, Soojin Kim, Phillip Lacy, Kim Longo, Lori Lopez, Vickie Lucero, Scott Luther, Jennifer MaGennis, Pat Maki, Teri Manazir, Carrie Mason, Bonnie McManners, Mark McNulty, Pam Mingle, Rick Nemer, Terry Newland, Diem Nguyen, Thu Nguyen, Aimee Pedemont, Niki Pham, Karolina Powalki, Yifeng Qiu, Lora Ramirez, Holly Roberts, Cassie Roberts, Jose Rocha, Arthur Rodriquez, Patricia Ryan, Jessica Sacheck, Sam Sacheck, Edna Sadberry, Angela Sadberry, Kiki Sadberry, Yasmin Sebbane, Scott Sechovec, Kendra Sechovec, Chelsie Sechovec, Cara Sechovec, Pat Seward, John Sigmund, Angelo Simeone, Gaurav Singla, Kym Smith, Jonathan Srabian, Doug Suave, Nellie Trainor, Leonor Varela, Marisa Wall, Richard Yates, Amy Yoast, Ludy Zambrano and Tracey Zielonka.
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Welcome to Operation Turkey
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DONATE TO
OPERATION TURKEY
Operation Turkey delivers Thanksgiving dinners to the homeless and less fortunate people in our communities.
We need your help - from food donations, preparation and delivery - we have a need for volunteers.
Please click the link in the upper right hand corner to become a volunteer.
Here are some of the cities that wonderful people will be handing out dinners:
Austin, TX
Beaumont, TX
Dallas, TX
Grass Valley, NV
Houston, TX
Manassas, VA
New Orleans, LA
Newport Beach, CA
Newport News, VA
Pottstown, PA
Rapid City, SD
Round Rock, TX
San Antonio, TX
San Marcos, TX
Temple, TX
Waco, TX
Woodbridge, VA
Thank you to SurfMySite, Inc. ( www.surfmysite.com ) for sponsoring our website each year.
Operation Turkey is a non-profit organization that accepts donations that are 100% used to purchase food for the homeless at Thanksgiving.
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