AUSTIN, Texas — Operation Turkey was once again in full swing on Thanksgiving Day. At dozens of locations in Central Texas and across the nation, thousands of volunteers spent this Thanksgiving morning preparing and delivering meals to those who are homeless or less fortunate.
The meals went out to people in Austin and across the country.
“I started Operation Turkey in 2000 by handing out one meal to a homeless man on Sixth Street in Austin,” founder Richard Bagdonas said. “It started with me in my car and my kitchen, and then my friends heard about it, then their friends heard about it, and then eventually it’s just word of mouth.
Since starting in Austin 24 years ago, the event has spread to more than 20 cities in four states nationwide. This Thanksgiving, 50,000 volunteers distributed 75,000 meals from coast to coast. That included the 500,000th meal distributed since Operation Turkey started.
“It’s heartwarming. It’s amazing,” Bagdonas said. “I almost get weak in the knees just thinking about it. I want to fall over sometimes thinking that that first meal turned into half a million meals over 24 years.”
On Thursday, over 1,000 volunteers gathered at Juliet Italian Kitchen to assemble boxes filled with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables and all the fixings. Among them were Willie Benoit and members of the Cap-Tex Cruisers group.
It is Benoit’s 3rd year participating in the event.
“It is awesome,” Benoit said. “It enlightens my day. It is just so good to give back to the community like this.”
Once volunteers assembled the plates, they loaded them into cars. The Navarro family were among those who volunteered to deliver about a dozen meals in Austin.
They dropped off a meal at Kieth Moore’s house.
“I don’t have any family to have Thanksgiving with, so this is really great,” Moore said.
The group is 100% volunteer-run and relies heavily on donations. As both the operation and demand from the communities have grown, so has something else: the cost of items like turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes at the grocery store.
“We used to say it only costs $2.50 for us to feed somebody. This year, it’s $3.50. So that means our dollars are just not going as far,” Bagdonas said. “We rely on people in the community to say, here’s $7, go feed two people. Here’s $25, go feed a family.”
Bagdonas said the group hopes to fill the gaps in society and help people out however they can.
“When people don’t have enough money to pay for food, they often don’t have enough money to pay for rent their car and other things, and that becomes a slippery slope,” Bagdonas said. “There are probably more people facing homelessness than ever before, and our job, as we see it, is to bring everybody a warm Thanksgiving meal and a little help.”