‘People can’t afford it.’ 800 pick up hot Thanksgiving meals in Haltom City
Alicih Carzae and her husband didn’t have enough savings this year to put a Thanksgiving feast on the table for their 10-year-old daughter.
Carzae, a 27-year-old from Haltom City, said she lost her job as a receptionist at a Weatherford veterinarian office back in May, when the business like so many others began to struggle amid lockdowns and an overall decrease in non-essential services for humans and pets. Her husband, who works for a garage door installation company, saw a sharp decrease in contracts with homeowners. They began to have a harder time paying their bills and rent each month, Carzae said. They budgeted carefully at the grocery store.
Typically on Thanksgiving, Carzae and her family would go to their grandparents’ home to sit with more than a dozen family members, gathering over a smorgasbord of dishes. But they made the hard choice to call that off this year over concerns of spreading the coronavirus.
Carzae drove with her daughter to the Christian Center of Fort Worth around 11:30 a.m. Thursday, where volunteers handed them a bagged Styrofoam box containing a hot traditional meal — turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, a piece of pecan pie — and a paper sack with groceries like bread and canned goods. She had seen the banner on the church last week advertising the event, she said. She and her family planned to eat the meal for lunch, while still hot.
The church has partnered with the Leah Vanzant Community Life Center for 28 years to hand out warm meals on Thanksgiving, helping to serve those in the community who may be without a home or a job, or who just don’t have enough saved for the holiday with other expenses.
But the service took on a new and more urgent meaning on Thursday, as more Americans are unemployed at this time than any Thanksgiving in recent memory and — in past weeks — food giveaways across Dallas-Fort Worth have attracted lines of thousands in need. Lines so long they need to be captured with helicopters and drones.
“It feels different,” Carzae said of her Thanksgiving in the year 2020. “At least we’re together. That’s what matters.”
She didn’t have a line to contend with at 11:30 a.m., missing the rush that occurred in the lead-up to the event that was scheduled to start at 11.
A line of dozens and dozens of cars wound through the parking lot and out into the road next to the large white building on Northeast 28th Street in Haltom City. As vehicles waited, and a crew from MSNBC prepared to air live from the scene, church leaders and volunteers made the decision to kick things off at 10:30. A police car blocked off traffic as vehicles pulled through and people handed them food.
They distributed all 800 meals they prepared, running out at 12:55 p.m.
It was a scene that played out across the Dallas-Fort Worth region on Thursday, as food pantries and other organizations prepared to give out dishes to whoever showed up first to claim them.
Steve Vanzant, the pastor at the Christian Center of Fort Worth, began with the church 28 years ago when they carried out the first Thanksgiving food distribution event. This is the first year ever, he said, where it hasn’t been an indoor event with friends and strangers gathered closely over their food. Due to people’s concerns over the coronavirus, they decided to make it a drive-thru.
Vanzant, whose late daughter inspired the name of the food pantry, said he wishes they could get back to normal but acknowledges people’s concerns are real.
“Obviously, we’d prefer it inside, we really get to fellowship with them,” Vanzant said. “Just the fact that we can touch people with not just the food we give them but with our kindness. You know kindness is an amazing thing.”
In the kitchen of the church, a group in face masks — some wearing clear shields too — prepared the food. Two men who serve as church elders were dumping fresh mashed potatoes into a tray around noon. Volunteers then took the potatoes to a long table in the church where other people were putting the dishes onto the boxes.
Finally, when a car pulled up, a person handed out a fresh box of food. Food pantry volunteers, including Michelle Juarez, then handed out a prepared bag of groceries.
“Right now, with the pandemic and everything, I feel like everybody needs to know that they’re not alone,” Juarez said. “There’s so much fear for everybody right now and we just want everybody to know that Jesus loves them, and we’re here.”
Jasmine Ramirez, 19, and her boyfriend Leon Gomez, 18, saw the long line outside of the Christian Center on Thursday morning and decided to come a little later. Around noon, they drove through the church to pick up a meal.
They acknowledged they didn’t necessarily need the food, since they were going to be having a meal of their own with Gomez’s parents and two siblings around 5 p.m. They would have normally attended a larger gathering with Gomez’s aunts and uncles and cousins.
But they appreciated being able to pick up a lunch, free of charge, on the holiday.
“It’s a good thing that they’re doing,” Gomez said. “Because people can’t afford it, all the food.”
