{ Thanksgiving }
This past Thanksgiving Day Event was certainly one for the ages as it was the third of our four annual events celebrating our 75th Anniversary. The incredible pace of the day began at 4:30am as Council Woman Jan Perry and Wells Fargo VP Brian Moeller served our friends and neighbors with many of the local news stations beaming out the event to early morning risers. As things wrapped in the kitchen, it was on to the outside where 5th street was shut down from San Pedro to Wall. As tents, tables, flowers, and chairs streamed from the trucks, the transformation from everyday Skid Row to Thanksgiving Day Feast was well underway. As usual, Wells Fargo, our Thanksgiving title sponsor, did it up in style! Not only did 200 amazing “team members” adorned in the Wells Fargo red T-Shirts converge upon the Los Angeles Mission, but we also had another amazing treat: At 9:00am two Wells Fargo Stages Coaches took to the streets. VP Brian Moeller from Wells Fargo exclaimed, “we have one for show and one for go” to the fact that they brought one that was drawn by a team of horses while another was brought specifically for people to view right on 5th street during the day. The “show” stage coach was also filled with nearly two pallets of wonderful shoes, socks, and toys amongst other things for our upcoming Christmas event.
Along with all the action on the street another component to the day was a food prep area that had been constructed to house the prepping of some great recipes by Chef Roy Choi of the Kogi Truck fame. Chef Choi along with celebrities Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Zoe Saldana prepared the Salsa Naranja, a Thai Chili Cranberry sauce as well as toasted sesame and roasted garlic mashed potatoes. Chef Choi was such a pleasure to work with, as the Kogi team sincerely seemed to love the people of Skid Row and Los Angeles. All of this was done before 10am so one can only imagine the incredible pace at which everyone was working.
As we gathered everyone together by 10:15am hosts Kirk and Anne Douglas arrived and the orientation was set to go. President Herb Smith of the Los Angeles Mission, Wells Fargo President of the L.A./Orange County Regional Bank John Sotoodeh and even Mr. Douglas himself a mere 95 years of age who has hosted the event along with his lovely wife Anne for the last 7 years, addressed the crowd. Once the orientation was complete the task of placing all the volunteers was underway and the real party began.
Once the opening prayer was complete the task of feeding thousands of people was underway as beautiful live music filled the air from Jazz bands, worships bands as well as recording artist Nova Page. The well oiled machine of volunteers and celebrities dished up plate upon plate of turkey (3000 pounds), sesame and garlic roasted mashed potatoes (700 pounds), green beans (800 pounds), giblet gravy (80 gallons) and pie (600) while others poured and served drinks. You could see the joy on the faces Mayor Villarigosa, Blair Underwood, Zoe Saldana and Kim Kardashian as they served the people.
After people were served this incredible meal they were able to have their feet washed by wonderful staff and volunteers from the Los Angeles Christian Health Centers. 230 people were able to have their feet washed and tended to in this most humbling act of service. People were then able to receive a bible from the Gideon’s (650 given out), get prayer (97 people), receive a beautiful blanket from Miss America International Kimberly VoDang (1475 blankets given out) as well as a tarp from Tarp’s Plus (1200 given out). As everyone left the event they were given a bag of candy which was collected by the students of Suzanne Middle School. It certainly was an amazing day and the Los Angeles Mission was blessed to be able to serve some 4232 meals for the day. We want to thank everyone who was involved from our title sponsor and their team members, celebrities, politicos and of course our regular volunteers as we could not even imagine pulling this off without all of them. We cannot wait to do it again next year and we hope to be able to bless the people of Los Angeles in a special way once again.