‘It comes from the heart.’ Middle Georgia organization plans to feed 1,500 for Thanksgiving
The Thanksgiving dinner rush had already begun Tuesday morning in the kitchen at the Rescue Mission of Middle Georgia. The kitchen staff was laughing.
One of the cooks, Daniel Wint, strutted past a rack of more than dozen smoked turkeys as he belted out a gobble and unleashed his trademark, hip-wobbling turkey dance.
It was a moment of levity. Then he was back to chopping lettuce.
While Thanksgiving loomed, there was still the day’s lunch to whip up: tacos.
Soon, though, volunteers would show up and begin pulling meat from the more than 200 prepared birds, placing it in serving trays for the more than 1,500 plates the Mission will serve on Thursday.
About 1,100 of those meals will be delivered to people’s homes. The rest will be served at the Mission’s Zebulon Road headquarters and in the Round Building at Central City Park.
The Mission, which moved its main office to the city’s northwest side, is serving meals at the park to reach people — including the homeless — who might not otherwise have a traditional feast like the ones the Mission provided for years at its former Hazel Street location in downtown.
Wint, 61, who entertained his kitchen cohorts with the turkey dance, was once homeless himself.
He said that at the holidays now he sometimes thinks about family and friends he hasn’t seen in a while.
“But I also think about the homeless. ... I have sympathy for them and I would like it that they have something to eat,” Wint said.
“I always think about giving them the best, because it comes from the heart. ... I am energized every day when I come in here because I think about them constantly: ‘What can I do to help them? What food can I give them that would make them feel good?’”
Gregory Brooks, kitchen manager at the Mission, said helping feed people at the holidays — hundreds of whom he doesn’t know — is “just a blessing.”
“To give at this time of the year,” Brooks said, “it’s an honor to be able to feed the needy.”
Brooks learned cooking from his mother, often in a church kitchen in his hometown of Warner Robins.
He later studied food service at the vocational school there.
“To be able to feed people that don’t have the necessary means and ways to get something to eat, it’s an honor to do it. I love it,” Brooks said. “This is my calling.”
On Tuesday, Brooks showed a visitor around the kitchen. He opened the door to a walk-in cooler, revealing boxes of chilled turkeys and trays of cranberry sauce.
Brooks said many of the men who work there have never helped prepare meals for so many people.
“To see their eyes light up, and for the community coming in and giving, it’s just a time that we share,” he said. “We’re ready. We’re ready for Thanksgiving.”